103 ideas
15801 | Many philosophers aim to understand metaphysics by studying ourselves [Chisholm] |
15802 | I use variables to show that each item remains the same entity throughout [Chisholm] |
23000 | Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller] |
23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
15832 | Events are states of affairs that occur at certain places and times [Chisholm] |
23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
15829 | The mark of a state of affairs is that it is capable of being accepted [Chisholm] |
15809 | A state of affairs pertains to a thing if it implies that it has some property [Chisholm] |
15828 | I propose that events and propositions are two types of states of affairs [Chisholm] |
13120 | Chisholm divides things into contingent and necessary, and then individuals, states and non-states [Chisholm, by Westerhoff] |
15827 | Some properties, such as 'being a widow', can be seen as 'rooted outside the time they are had' [Chisholm] |
15830 | Some properties can never be had, like being a round square [Chisholm] |
15804 | If some dogs are brown, that entails the properties of 'being brown' and 'being canine' [Chisholm] |
15810 | Maybe we can only individuate things by relating them to ourselves [Chisholm] |
15805 | Being the tallest man is an 'individual concept', but not a haecceity [Chisholm] |
15807 | A haecceity is a property had necessarily, and strictly confined to one entity [Chisholm] |
13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
15814 | A peach is sweet and fuzzy, but it doesn't 'have' those qualities [Chisholm] |
12852 | If x is ever part of y, then y is necessarily such that x is part of y at any time that y exists [Chisholm, by Simons] |
15808 | A traditional individual essence includes all of a thing's necessary characteristics [Chisholm] |
11966 | If there are essential properties, how do you find out what they are? [Chisholm] |
23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
12851 | Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons] |
457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
15806 | The property of being identical with me is an individual concept [Chisholm] |
15826 | There is 'loose' identity between things if their properties, or truths about them, might differ [Chisholm] |
11965 | Could possible Adam gradually transform into Noah, and vice versa? [Chisholm] |
19569 | We have a basic epistemic duty to believe truth and avoid error [Chisholm, by Kvanvig] |
15819 | Do sense-data have structure, location, weight, and constituting matter? [Chisholm] |
15816 | 'I feel depressed' is more like 'he runs slowly' than like 'he has a red book' [Chisholm] |
15817 | If we can say a man senses 'redly', why not also 'rectangularly'? [Chisholm] |
15818 | So called 'sense-data' are best seen as 'modifications' of the person experiencing them [Chisholm] |
8790 | The 'doctrine of the given' is correct; some beliefs or statements are self-justifying [Chisholm] |
462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
15831 | Explanations have states of affairs as their objects [Chisholm] |
15811 | I am picked out uniquely by my individual essence, which is 'being identical with myself' [Chisholm] |
15815 | Sartre says the ego is 'opaque'; I prefer to say that it is 'transparent' [Chisholm] |
15813 | People use 'I' to refer to themselves, with the meaning of their own individual essence [Chisholm] |
15803 | Bad theories of the self see it as abstract, or as a bundle, or as a process [Chisholm] |
3444 | If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm] |
3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm] |
9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm] |
15821 | Determinism claims that every event has a sufficient causal pre-condition [Chisholm] |
22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
20062 | If a desire leads to a satisfactory result by an odd route, the causal theory looks wrong [Chisholm] |
20054 | There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm] |
3442 | Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused [Chisholm] |
3443 | Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? [Chisholm] |
15824 | There are mere omissions (through ignorance, perhaps), and people can 'commit an omission' [Chisholm] |
552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
15822 | The concept of physical necessity is basic to both causation, and to the concept of nature [Chisholm] |
21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
23011 | Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller] |
15823 | Some propose a distinct 'agent causation', as well as 'event causation' [Chisholm] |
23013 | The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller] |
23014 | If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller] |
3445 | Causation among objects relates either events or states [Chisholm] |
23015 | The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller] |
23016 | Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller] |
15820 | A 'law of nature' is just something which is physically necessary [Chisholm] |
23009 | There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller] |
23002 | In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller] |
22988 | The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller] |
22991 | How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller] |
22992 | If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller] |
22994 | Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller] |
22998 | How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller] |
23017 | Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller] |
23023 | How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller] |
22995 | Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller] |
22993 | For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller] |
23001 | The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller] |
22999 | It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller] |
22986 | The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller] |
22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |
23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |
23003 | Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller] |
23004 | The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller] |
23005 | The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller] |
23006 | Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller] |
23010 | We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller] |
22989 | Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller] |
23020 | If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller] |
23022 | Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller] |
22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |
22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |
5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |