35 ideas
| 11193 | Understanding begins with the notion of being and essence [Avicenna] |
| 23728 | Analysis aims to express the full set of platitudes surrounding a given concept [Smith,M] |
| 23744 | Defining a set of things by paradigms doesn't pin them down enough [Smith,M] |
| 11209 | The simple's whatness is its very self [Avicenna] |
| 11204 | The ultimate material of things has the unity of total formlessness [Avicenna] |
| 15036 | An essence can either be universal (in the mind) or singular (in concrete particulars) [Avicenna, by Panaccio] |
| 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] |
| 14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on 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] |
| 14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |
| 23743 | Capturing all the common sense facts about rationality is almost impossible [Smith,M] |
| 23739 | Goals need desires, and so only desires can motivate us [Smith,M] |
| 23724 | A pure desire could be criticised if it were based on a false belief [Smith,M] |
| 23736 | A person can have a desire without feeling it [Smith,M] |
| 23723 | In the Humean account, desires are not true/false, or subject to any rational criticism [Smith,M] |
| 23735 | Subjects may be fallible about the desires which explain their actions [Smith,M] |
| 23738 | Humeans (unlike their opponents) say that desires and judgements can separate [Smith,M] |
| 23742 | If first- and second-order desires conflict, harmony does not require the second-order to win [Smith,M] |
| 23746 | Objective reasons to act might be the systematic desires of a fully rational person [Smith,M] |
| 23733 | Motivating reasons are psychological, while normative reasons are external [Smith,M] |
| 23740 | Humeans take maximising desire satisfaction as the normative reasons for actions [Smith,M] |
| 23745 | We cannot expect even fully rational people to converge on having the same desires for action [Smith,M] |
| 23731 | 'Externalists' say moral judgements are not reasons, and maybe not even motives [Smith,M] |
| 23732 | A person could make a moral judgement without being in any way motivated by it [Smith,M] |
| 23729 | Moral internalism says a judgement of rightness is thereby motivating [Smith,M] |
| 23730 | 'Rationalism' says the rightness of an action is a reason to perform it [Smith,M] |
| 23727 | Expressivists count attitudes as 'moral' if they concern features of things, rather than their mere existence [Smith,M] |
| 23741 | Is valuing something a matter of believing or a matter of desiring? [Smith,M] |
| 14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
| 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] |