Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' and 'Causation and Supervenience'

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21 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics
13939 No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism
13936 Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap]
8748 Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence
8960 Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
13933 Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
13934 To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
13938 A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
13935 We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
13932 Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 3. Pragmatism
13937 New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
13940 All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
468 Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
8388 Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley]
8389 Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation
8393 We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / a. Observation of causation
8390 Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
8392 Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley]
8399 The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
8391 In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
8394 Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley]
8398 Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley]