Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Jewish Question' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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17 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Man is dominated by money, which is the essence of his alienation [Marx]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
Marxists say liberal rights are confrontational, and liberal equality is a sham [Marx, by Wolff,J]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]