26 ideas
15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
5311 | If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO] |
15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
5312 | A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO] |
15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
5310 | Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO] |
5313 | The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO] |
5316 | We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO] |
5318 | Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO] |
5317 | The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
5308 | The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO] |
15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
5314 | Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO] |
5315 | Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |