77 ideas
| 8558 | One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker] |
| 8559 | Analysis aims at internal relationships, not reduction [Shoemaker] |
| 8594 | People have had good reasons for thinking that the circle has been squared [Shoemaker] |
| 4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 9065 | S5 collapses iterated modalities (◊□P→□P, and ◊◊P→◊P) [Keefe/Smith] |
| 15091 | Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker] |
| 8596 | Inability to measure equality doesn't make all lengths unequal [Shoemaker] |
| 8597 | We couldn't verify the earth's rotation if everyone simultaneously fell asleep [Shoemaker] |
| 9064 | Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9044 | If someone is borderline tall, no further information is likely to resolve the question [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9048 | The simplest approach, that vagueness is just ignorance, retains classical logic and semantics [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9055 | The epistemic view of vagueness must explain why we don't know the predicate boundary [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9049 | Supervaluationism keeps true-or-false where precision can be produced, but not otherwise [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9056 | Vague statements lack truth value if attempts to make them precise fail [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9058 | Some of the principles of classical logic still fail with supervaluationism [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9059 | The semantics of supervaluation (e.g. disjunction and quantification) is not classical [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9060 | Supervaluation misunderstands vagueness, treating it as a failure to make things precise [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9050 | A third truth-value at borderlines might be 'indeterminate', or a value somewhere between 0 and 1 [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9061 | People can't be placed in a precise order according to how 'nice' they are [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9062 | If truth-values for vagueness range from 0 to 1, there must be someone who is 'completely tall' [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9063 | How do we decide if my coat is red to degree 0.322 or 0.321? [Keefe/Smith] |
| 15092 | Formerly I said properties are individuated by essential causal powers and causing instantiation [Shoemaker, by Shoemaker] |
| 15095 | A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker] |
| 15097 | I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 8543 | Genuine properties are closely related to genuine changes [Shoemaker] |
| 8551 | Properties must be essentially causal if we can know and speak about them [Shoemaker] |
| 8557 | To ascertain genuine properties, examine the object directly [Shoemaker] |
| 4027 | Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 15761 | We should abandon the idea that properties are the meanings of predicate expressions [Shoemaker] |
| 15756 | Some truths are not because of a thing's properties, but because of the properties of related things [Shoemaker] |
| 4029 | Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 15758 | Things have powers in virtue of (which are entailed by) their properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8547 | One power can come from different properties; a thing's powers come from its properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8549 | Properties are functions producing powers, and powers are functions producing effects [Shoemaker] |
| 15094 | I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker] |
| 12678 | Shoemaker says all genuine properties are dispositional [Shoemaker, by Ellis] |
| 8545 | A causal theory of properties focuses on change, not (say) on abstract properties of numbers [Shoemaker] |
| 15757 | 'Square', 'round' and 'made of copper' show that not all properties are dispositional [Shoemaker] |
| 15759 | The identity of a property concerns its causal powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15760 | Properties are clusters of conditional powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15762 | Could properties change without the powers changing, or powers change without the properties changing? [Shoemaker] |
| 8552 | If properties are separated from causal powers, this invites total elimination [Shoemaker] |
| 4040 | The notions of property and of causal power are parts of a single system of related concepts [Shoemaker] |
| 15765 | Actually, properties are individuated by causes as well as effects [Shoemaker] |
| 14534 | Shoemaker moved from properties as powers to properties bestowing powers [Shoemaker, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 8548 | Dispositional predicates ascribe powers, and the rest ascribe properties [Shoemaker] |
| 9485 | Universals concern how things are, and how they could be [Shoemaker, by Bird] |
| 8550 | Triangular and trilateral are coextensive, but different concepts; but powers and properties are the same [Shoemaker] |
| 9045 | Vague predicates involve uncertain properties, uncertain objects, and paradoxes of gradual change [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9047 | Many vague predicates are multi-dimensional; 'big' involves height and volume; heaps include arrangement [Keefe/Smith] |
| 9053 | If there is a precise borderline area, that is not a case of vagueness [Keefe/Smith] |
| 8555 | There is no subset of properties which guarantee a thing's identity [Shoemaker] |
| 15099 | If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker] |
| 8554 | Possible difference across worlds depends on difference across time in the actual world [Shoemaker] |
| 15101 | Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker] |
| 15764 | 'Conceivable' is either not-provably-false, or compatible with what we know? [Shoemaker] |
| 15098 | Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker] |
| 15100 | Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker] |
| 8562 | It is possible to conceive what is not possible [Shoemaker] |
| 5691 | The adverbial account of sensation says not 'see a red image' but be 'appeared to redly' [Shoemaker] |
| 8593 | Maybe billions of changeless years have elapsed since my last meal [Shoemaker] |
| 15096 | 'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker] |
| 8556 | Grueness is not, unlike green and blue, associated with causal potential [Shoemaker] |
| 5687 | For true introspection, must we be aware that we are aware of our mental events? [Shoemaker] |
| 5688 | Empirical foundationalism says basic knowledge is self-intimating, and incorrigible or infallible [Shoemaker] |
| 1389 | If memory is the sole criterion of identity, we ought to use it for other people too [Shoemaker] |
| 1390 | Bodily identity is one criterion and memory another, for personal identity [Shoemaker, by PG] |
| 4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 8542 | If causality is between events, there must be reference to the properties involved [Shoemaker] |
| 8598 | If things turn red for an hour and then explode, we wouldn't say the redness was the cause [Shoemaker] |
| 15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
| 8560 | If causal laws describe causal potentialities, the same laws govern properties in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 15763 | If properties are causal, then causal necessity is a species of logical necessity [Shoemaker] |
| 8561 | If a world has different causal laws, it must have different properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8553 | It looks as if the immutability of the powers of a property imply essentiality [Shoemaker] |
| 4226 | If three regions 'freeze' every three, four and five years, after sixty years everything stops for a year [Shoemaker, by Lowe] |
| 8595 | If three regions freeze every 3rd, 4th and 5th year, they all freeze together every 60 years [Shoemaker] |