87 ideas
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 12205 | There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington] |
| 12207 | Metaphysical possibility is discovered empirically, and is contrained by nature [Edgington] |
| 12206 | Broadly logical necessity (i.e. not necessarily formal logical necessity) is an epistemic notion [Edgington] |
| 12185 | Logical necessity is epistemic necessity, which is the old notion of a priori [Edgington, by McFetridge] |
| 12208 | An argument is only valid if it is epistemically (a priori) necessary [Edgington] |
| 13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
| 14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| 13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
| 14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
| 14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| 14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
| 14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
| 14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |
| 13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
| 13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
| 14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
| 14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
| 13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
| 14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
| 15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| 12790 | Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan] |
| 12789 | Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan] |
| 14388 | Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan] |
| 12787 | Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14384 | We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan] |
| 14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| 14382 | Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan] |
| 14385 | Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan] |
| 14383 | A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan] |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
| 15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |