Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Explanation - Opening Address' and 'On the Individuation of Attributes'

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17 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties
18439 Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
18442 You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
18441 No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
18440 Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
17073 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
17077 The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
17078 Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
17061 Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
17074 Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
17076 Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
17071 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
17062 If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
17075 Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
3031 The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]