43 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
6161 | Structuralism is neo-Kantian idealism, with language playing the role of categories of understanding [Rowlands] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
6163 | If bivalence is rejected, then excluded middle must also be rejected [Rowlands] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
6155 | Supervenience is a one-way relation of dependence or determination between properties [Rowlands] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
6154 | It is argued that wholes possess modal and counterfactual properties that parts lack [Rowlands] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
6157 | Tokens are dated, concrete particulars; types are their general properties or kinds [Rowlands] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
6159 | Strong idealism is the sort of mess produced by a Cartesian separation of mind and world [Rowlands] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
6152 | Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands] |
6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |
6158 | Supervenience of mental and physical properties often comes with token-identity of mental and physical particulars [Rowlands] |
6168 | The content of a thought is just the meaning of a sentence [Rowlands] |
6167 | Action is bodily movement caused by intentional states [Rowlands] |
6177 | Moral intuition seems unevenly distributed between people [Rowlands] |
6156 | The 17th century reintroduced atoms as mathematical modes of Euclidean space [Rowlands] |
6170 | Natural kinds are defined by their real essence, as in gold having atomic number 79 [Rowlands] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
6178 | It is common to see the value of nature in one feature, such as life, diversity, or integrity [Rowlands] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |