119 ideas
| 11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| 23966 | The personal view can still be objective, so I call sciences 'impersonal', rather than objective [Goldie] |
| 11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| 14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| 11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
| 11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| 11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
| 10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
| 14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
| 11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
| 11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
| 11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| 11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
| 11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| 11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| 11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| 11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
| 11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| 11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
| 11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| 11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
| 11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| 11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
| 8836 | Must all justification be inferential? [Ginet] |
| 8837 | Inference cannot originate justification, it can only transfer it from premises to conclusion [Ginet] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
| 24005 | We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie] |
| 24006 | Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 23978 | 'Having an emotion' differs from 'being emotional' [Goldie] |
| 23973 | Unlike moods, emotions have specific objects, though the difference is a matter of degree [Goldie] |
| 23974 | Emotional intentionality as belief and desire misses out the necessity of feelings [Goldie] |
| 23972 | A long lasting and evolving emotion is still seen as a single emotion, such as love [Goldie] |
| 23992 | Some Aborigines have fifteen different words for types of fear [Goldie] |
| 23979 | Emotional responses can reveal to us our values, which might otherwise remain hidden [Goldie] |
| 23976 | If we have a 'feeling towards' an object, that gives the recognition a different content [Goldie] |
| 23977 | When actions are performed 'out of' emotion, they appear to be quite different [Goldie] |
| 23980 | It is best to see emotions holistically, as embedded in a person's life narrative [Goldie] |
| 23982 | If emotions are 'towards' things, they can't be bodily feelings, which lack aboutness [Goldie] |
| 23968 | If reasons are seen impersonally (as just causal), then feelings are an irrelevant extra [Goldie] |
| 23969 | We have feelings of which we are hardly aware towards things in the world [Goldie] |
| 23984 | An emotion needs episodes of feeling, but not continuously [Goldie] |
| 24001 | Moods can focus as emotions, and emotions can blur into moods [Goldie] |
| 23970 | Emotions are not avocado pears, with a rigid core and changeable surface [Goldie] |
| 23985 | A basic emotion is the foundation of a hierarchy, such as anger for types of annoyance [Goldie] |
| 23986 | Early Chinese basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking [Goldie] |
| 23991 | Cross-cultural studies of facial expressions suggests seven basic emotions [Goldie] |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| 11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
| 23995 | Akrasia can be either overruling our deliberation, or failing to deliberate [Goldie] |
| 24000 | Justifying reasons say you were right; excusing reasons say your act was explicable [Goldie] |
| 24003 | Character traits are both possession of and lack of dispositions [Goldie] |
| 24002 | We over-estimate the role of character traits when explaining behaviour [Goldie] |
| 24004 | Psychologists suggest we are muddled about traits, and maybe they should be abandoned [Goldie] |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| 23993 | Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period [Goldie] |