345 ideas
9218 | Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its pursuit of necessary truths [Sider] |
2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
2187 | If we suspect that a philosophical term is meaningless, we should ask what impression it derives from [Hume] |
14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
2200 | All experimental conclusions assume that the future will be like the past [Hume] |
3807 | Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions [Hume] |
15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
6961 | An analogy begins to break down as soon as the two cases differ [Hume] |
4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
13689 | 'Theorems' are formulas provable from no premises at all [Sider] |
13705 | Truth tables assume truth functionality, and are just pictures of truth functions [Sider] |
13706 | Intuitively, deontic accessibility seems not to be reflexive, but to be serial [Sider] |
13710 | In D we add that 'what is necessary is possible'; then tautologies are possible, and contradictions not necessary [Sider] |
13711 | System B introduces iterated modalities [Sider] |
13708 | S5 is the strongest system, since it has the most valid formulas, because it is easy to be S5-valid [Sider] |
13712 | Epistemic accessibility is reflexive, and allows positive and negative introspection (KK and K¬K) [Sider] |
13714 | We can treat modal worlds as different times [Sider] |
13720 | Converse Barcan Formula: □∀αφ→∀α□φ [Sider] |
13718 | The Barcan Formula ∀x□Fx→□∀xFx may be a defect in modal logic [Sider] |
13723 | System B is needed to prove the Barcan Formula [Sider] |
15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
13715 | You can employ intuitionist logic without intuitionism about mathematics [Sider] |
15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
13678 | The most popular account of logical consequence is the semantic or model-theoretic one [Sider] |
13679 | Maybe logical consequence is more a matter of provability than of truth-preservation [Sider] |
13682 | Maybe logical consequence is impossibility of the premises being true and the consequent false [Sider] |
13680 | Maybe logical consequence is a primitive notion [Sider] |
15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
13722 | A 'theorem' is an axiom, or the last line of a legitimate proof [Sider] |
15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
13696 | When a variable is 'free' of the quantifier, the result seems incapable of truth or falsity [Sider] |
13700 | A 'total' function must always produce an output for a given domain [Sider] |
13703 | λ can treat 'is cold and hungry' as a single predicate [Sider] |
13688 | Good axioms should be indisputable logical truths [Sider] |
13687 | No assumptions in axiomatic proofs, so no conditional proof or reductio [Sider] |
13690 | Proof by induction 'on the length of the formula' deconstructs a formula into its accepted atoms [Sider] |
13691 | Induction has a 'base case', then an 'inductive hypothesis', and then the 'inductive step' [Sider] |
15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
13685 | Natural deduction helpfully allows reasoning with assumptions [Sider] |
13686 | We can build proofs just from conclusions, rather than from plain formulae [Sider] |
13697 | Valuations in PC assign truth values to formulas relative to variable assignments [Sider] |
13684 | The semantical notion of a logical truth is validity, being true in all interpretations [Sider] |
13704 | It is hard to say which are the logical truths in modal logic, especially for iterated modal operators [Sider] |
13724 | In model theory, first define truth, then validity as truth in all models, and consequence as truth-preservation [Sider] |
13698 | In a complete logic you can avoid axiomatic proofs, by using models to show consequences [Sider] |
13699 | Compactness surprisingly says that no contradictions can emerge when the set goes infinite [Sider] |
13701 | A single second-order sentence validates all of arithmetic - but this can't be proved axiomatically [Sider] |
8649 | Two numbers are equal if all of their units correspond to one another [Hume] |
2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
21291 | There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume] |
7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
13692 | A 'precisification' of a trivalent interpretation reduces it to a bivalent interpretation [Sider] |
13695 | Supervaluational logic is classical, except when it adds the 'Definitely' operator [Sider] |
13693 | A 'supervaluation' assigns further Ts and Fs, if they have been assigned in every precisification [Sider] |
13694 | We can 'sharpen' vague terms, and then define truth as true-on-all-sharpenings [Sider] |
14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
13683 | A relation is a feature of multiple objects taken together [Sider] |
14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
10467 | Individuals consist of 'compresent' tropes [Bacon,John] |
10464 | A trope is a bit of a property or relation (not an exemplification or a quality) [Bacon,John] |
10465 | Trope theory is ontologically parsimonious, with possibly only one-category [Bacon,John] |
11942 | Power is the possibility of action, as discovered by experience [Hume] |
11949 | There may well be powers in things, with which we are quite unacquainted [Hume] |
11950 | We have no idea of powers, because we have no impressions of them [Hume] |
11941 | The distinction between a power and its exercise is entirely frivolous [Hume] |
13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
11098 | Momentary impressions are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance [Hume, by Quine] |
7954 | If we see a resemblance among objects, we apply the same name to them, despite their differences [Hume] |
21293 | Individuation is only seeing that a thing is stable and continuous over time [Hume] |
14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
12048 | The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume] |
13424 | Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume] |
14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
21300 | A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume] |
21299 | Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume] |
1330 | If a republic can retain identity through many changes, so can an individual [Hume] |
1321 | If identity survives change or interruption, then resemblance, contiguity or causation must unite the parts of it [Hume] |
14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
21303 | We accept the identity of a river through change, because it is the river's nature [Hume] |
21301 | The purpose of the ship makes it the same one through all variations [Hume] |
14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
21290 | Multiple objects cannot convey identity, because we see them as different [Hume] |
1207 | Both number and unity are incompatible with the relation of identity [Hume] |
21289 | 'An object is the same with itself' is meaningless; it expresses unity, not identity [Hume] |
21292 | Saying an object is the same with itself is only meaningful over a period of time [Hume] |
13702 | The identity of indiscernibles is necessarily true, if being a member of some set counts as a property [Sider] |
14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
13721 | 'Strong' necessity in all possible worlds; 'weak' necessity in the worlds where the relevant objects exist [Sider] |
13707 | Maybe metaphysical accessibility is intransitive, if a world in which I am a frog is impossible [Sider] |
13709 | Logical truths must be necessary if anything is [Sider] |
9428 | Nothing we clearly imagine is absolutely impossible [Hume] |
4766 | Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects [Hume] |
2216 | We transfer the frequency of past observations to our future predictions [Hume] |
2215 | There is no such thing as chance [Hume] |
13716 | 'If B hadn't shot L someone else would have' if false; 'If B didn't shoot L, someone else did' is true [Sider] |
15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
10466 | Maybe possible worlds are just sets of possible tropes [Bacon,John] |
13717 | Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual [Sider] |
14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
13719 | Barcan Formula problem: there might have been a ghost, despite nothing existing which could be a ghost [Sider] |
2209 | Belief is stronger, clearer and steadier than imagination [Hume] |
2207 | Belief can't be a concept plus an idea, or we could add the idea to fictions [Hume] |
2208 | Belief is just a particular feeling attached to ideas of objects [Hume] |
2213 | Beliefs are built up by resemblance, contiguity and causation [Hume] |
20189 | Belief is a feeling, independent of the will, which arises from uncontrolled and unknown causes [Hume] |
3661 | 'Natural beliefs' are unavoidable, whatever our judgements [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
6526 | Hume says objects are not a construction, but an imaginative leap [Hume, by Robinson,H] |
2191 | Relations of ideas are known by thought, independently from the world [Hume] |
2239 | If secondary qualities (e.g. hardness) are in the mind, so are primary qualities like extension [Hume] |
2237 | It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects [Hume] |
2192 | All reasoning about facts is causal; nothing else goes beyond memory and senses [Hume] |
21309 | A proposition cannot be intelligible or consistent, if the perceptions are not so [Hume] |
2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [Hume] |
23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on Hume] |
2246 | If books don't relate ideas or explain facts, commit them to the flames [Hume] |
2182 | Impressions are our livelier perceptions, Ideas the less lively ones [Hume] |
2190 | All objects of enquiry are Relations of Ideas, or Matters of Fact [Hume] |
2189 | All ideas are connected by Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect [Hume] |
6489 | Associationism results from having to explain intentionality just with sense-data [Robinson,H on Hume] |
2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
2183 | We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume] |
21285 | Events are baffling before experience, and obvious after experience [Hume] |
2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume] |
2702 | Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume] |
2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on Hume] |
6182 | Even Hume didn't include mathematics in his empiricism [Hume, by Kant] |
23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
2206 | Reasons for belief must eventually terminate in experience, or they are without foundation [Hume] |
2235 | There is no certain supreme principle, or infallible rule of inference [Hume] |
10328 | We think testimony matches reality because of experience, not some a priori connection [Hume] |
2230 | Good testimony needs education, integrity, motive and agreement [Hume, by PG] |
12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
2238 | Reason can never show that experiences are connected to external objects [Hume] |
2242 | Mitigated scepticism draws attention to the limitations of human reason, and encourages modesty [Hume] |
2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
2236 | Examples of illusion only show that sense experience needs correction by reason [Hume] |
2240 | It is a very extravagant aim of the sceptics to destroy reason and argument by means of reason and argument [Hume] |
2241 | The main objection to scepticism is that no good can come of it [Hume] |
14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
7446 | The idea of inductive evidence, around 1660, made Hume's problem possible [Hume, by Hacking] |
2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
2204 | All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning [Hume] |
2201 | Induction can't prove that the future will be like the past, since induction assumes this [Hume] |
2203 | If we infer causes from repetition, this explains why we infer from a thousand objects what we couldn't infer from one [Hume] |
2199 | Reason cannot show why reliable past experience should extend to future times and remote places [Hume] |
2202 | Fools, children and animals all learn from experience [Hume] |
6350 | Premises can support an argument without entailing it [Pollock/Cruz on Hume] |
3598 | Hume just shows induction isn't deduction [Williams,M on Hume] |
14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
21806 | Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume] |
2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
15755 | Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
2211 | When I am close to (contiguous with) home, I feel its presence more nearly [Hume] |
2212 | An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume] |
2214 | Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume] |
5323 | Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness [Ayer on Hume] |
3819 | Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume] |
1317 | A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume] |
1331 | The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume] |
1388 | Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume] |
21297 | A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume] |
1316 | Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume] |
1333 | Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume] |
1332 | We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume] |
21305 | Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume] |
21307 | Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume] |
21306 | Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume] |
21311 | Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume] |
21312 | Perceptions are distinct, so no connection between them can ever be discovered [Hume] |
21294 | A continuous lifelong self must be justified by a single sustained impression, which we don't have [Hume] |
21295 | When I introspect I can only observe my perceptions, and never a self which has them [Hume] |
21298 | We pretend our perceptions are continuous, and imagine a self to fill the gaps [Hume] |
21304 | Identity in the mind is a fiction, like that fiction that plants and animals stay the same [Hume] |
21308 | We have no impression of the self, and we therefore have no idea of it [Hume] |
21310 | Does an oyster with one perception have a self? Would lots of perceptions change that? [Hume] |
2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
2223 | Liberty is merely acting according to the will, which anyone can do if they are not in chains [Hume] |
3655 | Hume makes determinism less rigid by removing the necessity from causation [Trusted on Hume] |
14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
20030 | If one event causes another, the two events must be wholly distinct [Hume, by Wilson/Schpall] |
2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
6692 | For Hume, practical reason has little force, because we can always modify our desires [Hume, by Graham] |
8257 | Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will [Hume] |
22374 | You can only hold people responsible for actions which arise out of their character [Hume] |
2224 | Praise and blame can only be given if an action proceeds from a person's character and disposition [Hume] |
21103 | Moral questions can only be decided by common opinion [Hume] |
18552 | Forget about beauty; just concentrate on the virtues of delicacy and discernment admired in critics [Hume, by Scruton] |
6608 | Strong sense, delicate sentiment, practice, comparisons, and lack of prejudice, are all needed for good taste [Hume] |
2225 | If you deny all necessity and causation, then our character is not responsible for our crime [Hume] |
2226 | Repentance gets rid of guilt, which shows that responsibility arose from the criminal principles in the mind [Hume] |
22382 | We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume] |
4008 | Modern science has destroyed the Platonic synthesis of scientific explanation and morality [Hume, by Taylor,C] |
8067 | The problem of getting to 'ought' from 'is' would also apply in getting to 'owes' or 'needs' [Anscombe on Hume] |
4578 | You can't move from 'is' to 'ought' without giving some explanation or reason for the deduction [Hume] |
4581 | Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume] |
3926 | The human heart has a natural concern for public good [Hume] |
23115 | We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume] |
3650 | Total selfishness is not irrational [Hume] |
3929 | No moral theory is of any use if it doesn't serve the interests of the individual concerned [Hume] |
3925 | Personal Merit is the possession of useful or agreeable mental qualities [Hume] |
4580 | All virtues benefit either the public, or the individual who possesses them [Hume] |
3922 | Justice only exists to support society [Hume] |
23560 | If we all naturally had everything we could ever desire, the virtue of justice would be irrelevant [Hume] |
21093 | Friendship without community spirit misses out on the main part of virtue [Hume] |
3918 | Moral philosophy aims to show us our duty [Hume] |
3919 | Conclusions of reason do not affect our emotions or decisions to act [Hume] |
3928 | Virtue just requires careful calculation and a preference for the greater happiness [Hume] |
3923 | No one would cause pain to a complete stranger who happened to be passing [Hume] |
3924 | Nature makes private affections come first, because public concerns are spread too thinly [Hume] |
21099 | People must have agreed to authority, because they are naturally equal, prior to education [Hume] |
3921 | The safety of the people is the supreme law [Hume] |
21096 | The only purpose of government is to administer justice, which brings security [Hume] |
21100 | The idea that society rests on consent or promises undermines obedience [Hume] |
20495 | We no more give 'tacit assent' to the state than a passenger carried on board a ship while asleep [Hume] |
21101 | The people would be amazed to learn that government arises from their consent [Hume] |
21091 | It would be absurd if even a free constitution did not impose restraints, for the public good [Hume] |
21097 | Modern monarchies are (like republics) rule by law, rather than by men [Hume] |
21092 | Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume] |
3927 | Society prefers helpful lies to harmful truth [Hume] |
2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
6703 | Poor people lack the knowledge or wealth to move to a different state [Hume] |
3920 | If you equalise possessions, people's talents will make them unequal again [Hume] |
21094 | There are two kinds of right - to power, and to property [Hume] |
6581 | Hume thought (unlike Locke) that property is a merely conventional relationship [Hume, by Fogelin] |
21102 | We all know that the history of property is founded on injustices [Hume] |
21095 | It is an exaggeration to say that property is the foundation of all government [Hume] |
4677 | If suicide is wrong because only God disposes of our lives, it must also be wrong to save lives [Hume] |
2195 | We can discover some laws of nature, but never its ultimate principles and causes [Hume] |
14301 | We have no good concept of solidity or matter, because accounts of them are all circular [Hume] |
2245 | A priori it looks as if a cause could have absolutely any effect [Hume] |
4772 | If a singular effect is studied, its cause can only be inferred from the types of events involved [Hume] |
4579 | The idea of a final cause is very uncertain and unphilosophical [Hume] |
8341 | Hume never even suggests that there is no such thing as causation [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
8344 | At first Hume said qualities are the causal entities, but later he said events [Hume, by Davidson] |
8382 | For Hume a constant conjunction is both necessary and sufficient for causation [Hume, by Crane] |
3662 | Hume says we can only know constant conjunctions, not that that's what causation IS [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
16946 | Causation is just invariance, as long as it is described in general terms [Quine on Hume] |
15250 | If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition [Whitehead on Hume] |
4771 | In both of Hume's definitions, causation is extrinsic to the sequence of events [Psillos on Hume] |
5194 | Hume's definition of cause as constantly joined thoughts can't cover undiscovered laws [Ayer on Hume] |
2221 | A cause is either similar events following one another, or an experience always suggesting a second experience [Hume] |
2234 | It is only when two species of thing are constantly conjoined that we can infer one from the other [Hume] |
2193 | No causes can be known a priori, but only from experience of constant conjunctions [Hume] |
8422 | Cause is where if the first object had not been, the second had not existed [Hume] |
19274 | Hume seems to presuppose necessary connections between mental events [Kripke on Hume] |
20705 | That events could be uncaused is absurd; I only say intuition and demonstration don't show this [Hume] |
2218 | In observing causes we can never observe any necessary connections or binding qualities [Hume] |
15249 | Hume never shows how a strong habit could generate the concept of necessity [Harré/Madden on Hume] |
8339 | Hume's regularity theory of causation is epistemological; he believed in some sort of natural necessity [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
6959 | We can't assume God's perfections are like our ideas or like human attributes [Hume] |
6957 | The objects of theological reasoning are too big for our minds [Hume] |
2244 | It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume] |
21255 | No being's non-existence can imply a contradiction, so its existence cannot be proved a priori [Hume] |
21254 | A chain of events requires a cause for the whole as well as the parts, yet the chain is just a sum of parts [Hume] |
1435 | If something must be necessary so that something exists rather than nothing, why can't the universe be necessary? [Hume] |
6962 | The thing which contains order must be God, so see God where you see order [Hume] |
6958 | How can we pronounce on a whole after a brief look at a very small part? [Hume] |
21282 | Design cannot prove a unified Deity. Many men make a city, so why not many gods for a world? [Hume] |
21280 | From a ship you would judge its creator a genius, not a mere humble workman [Hume] |
21281 | This excellent world may be the result of a huge sequence of trial-and-error [Hume] |
21283 | Humans renew their species sexually. If there are many gods, would they not do the same? [Hume] |
6966 | Creation is more like vegetation than human art, so it won't come from reason [Hume] |
21284 | This Creator god might be an infant or incompetent or senile [Hume] |
21286 | Motion often begins in matter, with no sign of a controlling agent [Hume] |
21287 | The universe could settle into superficial order, without a designer [Hume] |
21288 | Ideas arise from objects, not vice versa; ideas only influence matter if they are linked [Hume] |
21256 | A surprise feature of all products of 9 looks like design, but is actually a necessity [Hume] |
6963 | Why would we infer an infinite creator from a finite creation? [Hume] |
6960 | Analogy suggests that God has a very great human mind [Hume] |
6965 | The universe may be the result of trial-and-error [Hume] |
6967 | Order may come from an irrational source as well as a rational one [Hume] |
6964 | From our limited view, we cannot tell if the universe is faulty [Hume] |
2232 | You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume] |
21279 | If the divine cause is proportional to its effects, the effects are finite, so the Deity cannot be infinite [Hume] |
2227 | A miracle violates laws which have been established by continuous unchanging experience, so should be ignored [Hume] |
7636 | It can't be more rational to believe in natural laws than miracles if the laws are not rational [Ishaq on Hume] |
2228 | All experience must be against a supposed miracle, or it wouldn't be called 'a miracle' [Hume] |
2229 | To establish a miracle the falseness of the evidence must be a greater miracle than the claimed miraculous event [Hume] |
2185 | The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume] |
21296 | If all of my perceptions were removed by death, nothing more is needed for total annihilation [Hume] |