Paper VI — Philosophy and Logic
30 QUESTIONS
Scope
Confined to theoretical philosophy: formal logic, epistemology, metaphysics of science, philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of physics and biology. No moral, political or value-philosophy content.
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1.
Is logical entailment a transitive relation? Defend your answer.
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2.
Do Gödel's incompleteness theorems bear on the thesis that the mind is a machine?
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3.
Can there be vague objects, or only vague descriptions?
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4.
Is it possible to define truth non-circularly for a language containing its own truth predicate?
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5.
What does the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem show about the determinacy of mathematical reference?
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6.
Are there absolutely undecidable mathematical propositions?
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7.
Do the paradoxes of quantum mechanics pose a threat to classical logic?
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8.
Is set-theoretic Platonism compatible with our capacity to know mathematical facts?
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9.
What, if anything, does reverse mathematics teach us about foundations?
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10.
Can mathematical facts explain physical phenomena?
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11.
Is chemistry reducible to physics? State the criterion of reduction you use.
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12.
Does teleological explanation have an ineliminable role in biology?
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13.
What is a law of nature, and could the laws have been otherwise?
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14.
Is there a coherent notion of metaphysical modality distinct from logical and physical modality?
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15.
Compare the Russellian and Strawsonian treatments of definite descriptions.
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16.
Can there be time without change, or change without time?
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17.
Is the principle of bivalence defensible in the face of the future?
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18.
What does quantum entanglement imply for our concept of causation?
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19.
Is there a livable interpretation of probability that is neither frequentist nor subjectivist?
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20.
Can modal logic tell us anything about reality, or only about our language?
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21.
Is the a priori / a posteriori distinction coherent and explanatory? Draw it or reject it.
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22.
What is the best response to the underdetermination of theory by evidence?
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23.
Are laws of nature relations among universals, or regularities, or neither?
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24.
Does the success of science give us reason to believe its unobservable posits?
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25.
Is identity across time a further fact, or fixed by qualitative continuity?
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26.
What is a natural kind, and does the periodic table exhibit them?
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27.
Can there be a consistent version of verificationism, and would it be plausible?
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28.
What does it mean to say a physical theory is background-independent, and is that a virtue?
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29.
Is arithmetic analytic, synthetic a priori, or empirical?
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30.
What is the strongest challenge to a law of classical logic, and can it be resisted?