35 ideas
| 12772 | Philosophy is a value- and attitude-driven enterprise [Fraassen] |
| 12771 | Is it likely that a successful, coherent, explanatory ontological hypothesis is true? [Fraassen] |
| 12773 | Analytic philosophy has an exceptional arsenal of critical tools [Fraassen] |
| 23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
| 12770 | We may end up with a huge theory of carefully constructed falsehoods [Fraassen] |
| 23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
| 13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| 23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
| 23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
| 23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
| 23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
| 23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
| 23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
| 23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
| 23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
| 23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
| 14919 | Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality [Fraassen] |
| 6783 | To 'accept' a theory is not to believe it, but to believe it empirically adequate [Fraassen, by Bird] |
| 14917 | To accept a scientific theory, we only need to believe that it is empirically adequate [Fraassen] |
| 6784 | Why should the true explanation be one of the few we have actually thought of? [Fraassen, by Bird] |
| 12769 | Inference to best explanation contains all sorts of hidden values [Fraassen] |
| 13066 | An explanation is just descriptive information answering a particular question [Fraassen, by Salmon] |
| 12768 | We accept many scientific theories without endorsing them as true [Fraassen] |
| 23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
| 23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
| 23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |