69 ideas
19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
18486 | We might define truth as arising from the truth-maker relation [MacBride] |
18484 | Phenomenalists, behaviourists and presentists can't supply credible truth-makers [MacBride] |
18466 | If truthmaking is classical entailment, then anything whatsoever makes a necessary truth [MacBride] |
18473 | 'Maximalism' says every truth has an actual truthmaker [MacBride] |
18481 | Maximalism follows Russell, and optimalism (no negative or universal truthmakers) follows Wittgenstein [MacBride] |
18483 | The main idea of truth-making is that what a proposition is about is what matters [MacBride] |
18479 | There are different types of truthmakers for different types of negative truth [MacBride] |
18477 | There aren't enough positive states out there to support all the negative truths [MacBride] |
18482 | Optimalists say that negative and universal are true 'by default' from the positive truths [MacBride] |
18474 | Does 'this sentence has no truth-maker' have a truth-maker? Reductio suggests it can't have [MacBride] |
18485 | Even idealists could accept truthmakers, as mind-dependent [MacBride] |
18490 | Maybe 'makes true' is not an active verb, but just a formal connective like 'because'? [MacBride] |
18493 | Truthmaker talk of 'something' making sentences true, which presupposes objectual quantification [MacBride] |
19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
18489 | Connectives link sentences without linking their meanings [MacBride] |
18476 | 'A is F' may not be positive ('is dead'), and 'A is not-F' may not be negative ('is not blind') [MacBride] |
8923 | Numbers are identified by their main properties and relations, involving the successor function [MacBride] |
13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
8926 | For mathematical objects to be positions, positions themselves must exist first [MacBride] |
19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
18480 | Maybe it only exists if it is a truthmaker (rather than the value of a variable)? [MacBride] |
18471 | Different types of 'grounding' seem to have no more than a family resemblance relation [MacBride] |
18472 | Which has priority - 'grounding' or 'truth-making'? [MacBride] |
19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
18475 | Russell allows some complex facts, but Wittgenstein only allows atomic facts [MacBride] |
21354 | It may be that internal relations like proportion exist, because we directly perceive it [MacBride] |
21353 | Internal relations are fixed by existences, or characters, or supervenience on characters [MacBride] |
21352 | 'Multigrade' relations are those lacking a fixed number of relata [MacBride] |
19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
18478 | Wittgenstein's plan to show there is only logical necessity failed, because of colours [MacBride] |
17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
17993 | Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter] |
19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |