85 ideas
| 21584 | A sense of timelessness is essential to wisdom [Russell] |
| 21572 | Philosophical disputes are mostly hopeless, because philosophers don't understand each other [Russell] |
| 21571 | Philosophical systems are interesting, but we now need a more objective scientific philosophy [Russell] |
| 21574 | Hegel's confusions over 'is' show how vast systems can be built on simple errors [Russell] |
| 21587 | Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system [Russell] |
| 21582 | Physicists accept particles, points and instants, while pretending they don't do metaphysics [Russell] |
| 21573 | When problems are analysed properly, they are either logical, or not philosophical at all [Russell] |
| 21588 | Logic gives the method of research in philosophy [Russell] |
| 21586 | The logical connectives are not objects, but are formal, and need a context [Russell] |
| 3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
| 21585 | The tortoise won't win, because infinite instants don't compose an infinitely long time [Russell] |
| 3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
| 21684 | Atomic facts may be inferrable from others, but never from non-atomic facts [Russell] |
| 22316 | A positive and negative fact have the same constituents; their difference is primitive [Russell] |
| 21576 | With asymmetrical relations (before/after) the reduction to properties is impossible [Russell] |
| 21575 | When we attribute a common quality to a group, we can forget the quality and just talk of the group [Russell] |
| 3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
| 21580 | Science condemns sense-data and accepts matter, but a logical construction must link them [Russell] |
| 21583 | When sense-data change, there must be indistinguishable sense-data in the process [Russell] |
| 21577 | Empirical truths are particular, so general truths need an a priori input of generality [Russell] |
| 3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
| 21579 | Objects are treated as real when they connect with other experiences in a normal way [Russell] |
| 3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
| 21578 | Global scepticism is irrefutable, but can't replace our other beliefs, and just makes us hesitate [Russell] |
| 3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
| 3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
| 3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
| 6416 | Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling] |
| 3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
| 3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
| 3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
| 3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
| 3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
| 3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
| 3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
| 3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
| 3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
| 3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
| 3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
| 3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
| 3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
| 3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
| 3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
| 3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
| 3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
| 3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
| 3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
| 3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
| 3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
| 3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
| 3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
| 3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
| 3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
| 3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
| 3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
| 3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
| 3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
| 3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
| 3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
| 3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
| 3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
| 3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
| 3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
| 3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
| 3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
| 3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
| 3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
| 3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
| 3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
| 3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
| 3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
| 3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
| 3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
| 3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
| 3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
| 3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
| 3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
| 3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
| 1554 | Contradiction is impossible, since only one side of the argument refers to the true facts [Prodicus, by Didymus the Blind] |
| 3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
| 3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
| 21581 | We never experience times, but only succession of events [Russell] |
| 1555 | People used to think anything helpful to life was a god, as the Egyptians think the Nile a god [Prodicus] |
| 535 | The gods are just personified human benefits [Prodicus] |
| 1543 | He denied the existence of the gods, saying they are just exaltations of things useful for life [Prodicus] |