70 ideas
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| 12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
| 12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
| 6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| 12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
| 8921 | Structuralism is now common, studying relations, with no regard for what the objects might be [Hellman] |
| 8698 | Modal structuralism says mathematics studies possible structures, which may or may not be actualised [Hellman, by Friend] |
| 9557 | Statements of pure mathematics are elliptical for a sort of modal conditional [Hellman, by Chihara] |
| 10263 | Modal structuralism can only judge possibility by 'possible' models [Shapiro on Hellman] |
| 8922 | Maybe mathematical objects only have structural roles, and no intrinsic nature [Hellman] |
| 12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
| 6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
| 6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
| 6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
| 5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
| 6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
| 12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
| 12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| 12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
| 12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
| 12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
| 12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
| 12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
| 12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
| 12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
| 5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
| 12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| 12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| 12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
| 12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
| 6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
| 6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
| 6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
| 6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
| 6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
| 6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
| 6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
| 6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
| 5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
| 6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
| 6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
| 6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| 6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
| 12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
| 12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
| 12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
| 12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |
| 6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |