84 ideas
21634 | Metaphysics is (supposedly) first the ontology, then in general what things are like [Hofweber] |
16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
21666 | 'Fundamentality' is either a superficial idea, or much too obscure [Hofweber] |
23000 | Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller] |
21640 | 'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely' [Hofweber] |
17990 | Instances of minimal truth miss out propositions inexpressible in current English [Hofweber] |
21657 | Since properties can have properties, some theorists rank them in 'types' [Hofweber] |
21653 | Maybe not even names are referential, but are just by used by speakers to refer [Hofweber] |
10001 | An adjective contributes semantically to a noun phrase [Hofweber] |
21636 | 'Singular terms' are not found in modern linguistics, and are not the same as noun phrases [Hofweber] |
21637 | If two processes are said to be identical, that doesn't make their terms refer to entities [Hofweber] |
16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
10007 | Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber] |
17988 | Quantification can't all be substitutional; some reference is obviously to objects [Hofweber] |
23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
10002 | '2 + 2 = 4' can be read as either singular or plural [Hofweber] |
21644 | Numbers are used as singular terms, as adjectives, and as symbols [Hofweber] |
21646 | The Amazonian Piraha language is said to have no number words [Hofweber] |
9998 | What is the relation of number words as singular-terms, adjectives/determiners, and symbols? [Hofweber] |
21665 | The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is that all numbers are composed uniquely of primes [Hofweber] |
21649 | How can words be used for counting if they are objects? [Hofweber] |
10003 | Why is arithmetic hard to learn, but then becomes easy? [Hofweber] |
10008 | Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, as the quantifiers are purely inferential [Hofweber] |
10005 | Arithmetic doesn’t simply depend on objects, since it is true of fictional objects [Hofweber] |
10000 | We might eliminate adjectival numbers by analysing them into blocks of quantifiers [Hofweber] |
21647 | Logicism makes sense of our ability to know arithmetic just by thought [Hofweber] |
21648 | Neo-Fregeans are dazzled by a technical result, and ignore practicalities [Hofweber] |
10006 | First-order logic captures the inferential relations of numbers, but not the semantics [Hofweber] |
23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
21664 | Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber] |
21660 | Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber] |
21661 | There are probably ineffable facts, systematically hidden from us [Hofweber] |
17989 | Since properties have properties, there can be a typed or a type-free theory of them [Hofweber] |
21652 | Our perceptual beliefs are about ordinary objects, not about simples arranged chair-wise [Hofweber] |
23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
21663 | Counterfactuals are essential for planning, and learning from mistakes [Hofweber] |
20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
10004 | Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber] |
21654 | The "Fido"-Fido theory of meaning says every expression in a language has a referent [Hofweber] |
21641 | Inferential role semantics is an alternative to semantics that connects to the world [Hofweber] |
21638 | Syntactic form concerns the focus of the sentence, as well as the truth-conditions [Hofweber] |
21658 | Properties can be expressed in a language despite the absence of a single word for them [Hofweber] |
21659 | 'Being taller than this' is a predicate which can express many different properties [Hofweber] |
21655 | Compositonality is a way to build up the truth-conditions of a sentence [Hofweber] |
21656 | Proposition have no content, because they are content [Hofweber] |
21635 | Without propositions there can be no beliefs or desires [Hofweber] |
21662 | Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber] |
21645 | 'Semantic type coercion' is selecting the reading of a word to make the best sense [Hofweber] |
21639 | 'Background deletion' is appropriately omitting background from an answer [Hofweber] |
17991 | Holism says language can't be translated; the expressibility hypothesis says everything can [Hofweber] |
23011 | Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller] |
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] |
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] |
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] |