50 ideas
12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
8754 | Logic is dependent on mathematics, not the other way round [Heyting, by Shapiro] |
12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |
15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |