Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'A Slim Book about Narrow Content' and 'Senses of Essence'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

30 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
1597 Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
3123 Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
3125 Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 6. Definition by Essence
11178 The essence or definition of an essence involves either a class of properties or a class of propositions [Fine,K]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
11175 Logical concepts rest on certain inferences, not on facts about implications [Fine,K]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 3. Property (λ-) Abstraction
11176 The property of Property Abstraction says any suitable condition must imply a property [Fine,K]
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 3. Logical Truth
11174 A logical truth is true in virtue of the nature of the logical concepts [Fine,K]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
11177 Can the essence of an object circularly involve itself, or involve another object? [Fine,K]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
11173 Being a man is a consequence of his essence, not constitutive of it [Fine,K]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
11179 If there are alternative definitions, then we have three possibilities for essence [Fine,K]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
3105 Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
3013 Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
3106 If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
3113 The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
3112 Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
3110 Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal]
3124 Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal]
3108 If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
3109 If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal]
3117 Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal]
3116 Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal]
3104 Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal]
3111 Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal]
3103 Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal]
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
3121 If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal]
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
3118 If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal]
3119 Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
1494 Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
1713 Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
1742 Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]