77 ideas
22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
10938 | The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones [Rami] |
10940 | An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object [Rami] |
10939 | 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami] |
10934 | Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties [Rami] |
22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
10933 | Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility [Rami] |
10932 | If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' [Rami] |
22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |