137 ideas
3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
1489 | Modern philosophy tends to be a theory-constructing extension of science, but there is also problem-solving [Nagel] |
6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
19215 | Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks] |
14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
19205 | 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks] |
14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
19209 | Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks] |
19208 | The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks] |
19207 | Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks] |
14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
6143 | Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks] |
4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
6135 | A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks] |
14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
6145 | Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks] |
3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
6124 | I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks] |
6134 | Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks] |
14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
14229 | Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins] |
6142 | The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks] |
14472 | If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson] |
14469 | Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks] |
6137 | Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks] |
6127 | 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks] |
6131 | Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks] |
6132 | Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks] |
6141 | There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks] |
6130 | 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks] |
6138 | It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks] |
6128 | Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks] |
14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
19214 | In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks] |
6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
6150 | The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks] |
3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
6144 | You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks] |
6140 | Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks] |
3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |
3288 | Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel] |
6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
4883 | Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel] |
3287 | We can't be objective about experience [Nagel] |
4989 | Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel] |
6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |
19217 | I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks] |
19203 | A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks] |
4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
19200 | Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks] |
19206 | 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks] |
19202 | Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks] |
19204 | True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks] |
19210 | The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks] |
19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
19212 | Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks] |
19213 | We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks] |
6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
3284 | There is no one theory of how to act (or what to believe) [Nagel] |
3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
3282 | The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel] |
3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
3278 | An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel] |
6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
3275 | Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel] |
3281 | The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel] |
3277 | In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel] |
3274 | Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel] |
3273 | Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel] |
6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
3276 | A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel] |
3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
17960 | Eternalism says all times are equally real, and future and past objects and properties are real [Merricks] |
17961 | Growing block has a subjective present and a growing edge - but these could come apart [Merricks, by PG] |
14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |