56 ideas
| 6602 | Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon] |
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 18889 | Ostensive definitions needn't involve pointing, but must refer to something specific [Salmon,N] |
| 14684 | A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N] |
| 14669 | For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14667 | System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14668 | In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N] |
| 14692 | System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N] |
| 14671 | What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N] |
| 14627 | S4, and therefore S5, are invalid for metaphysical modality [Salmon,N, by Williamson] |
| 14686 | S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N] |
| 14691 | S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14693 | The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N] |
| 14670 | Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N] |
| 14742 | It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x [Salmon,N] |
| 16639 | Only individual bodies exist [Bacon] |
| 16625 | In hylomorphism all the explanation of actions is in the form, and the matter doesn't do anything [Bacon] |
| 16033 | There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon] |
| 18888 | Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist [Salmon,N] |
| 14678 | Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N] |
| 14680 | Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N] |
| 14690 | In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N] |
| 14677 | Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N] |
| 14679 | Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| 14688 | Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14685 | Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| 14681 | Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14676 | Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N] |
| 14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
| 14674 | Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 14682 | Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N] |
| 14687 | Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 14683 | Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N] |
| 14672 | Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14675 | Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N] |
| 14673 | You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N] |
| 16724 | The senses deceive, but also show their own errors [Bacon] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 3648 | Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 6603 | Nature is revealed when we put it under pressure rather than observe it [Bacon] |
| 21950 | Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 18886 | Frege's 'sense' solves four tricky puzzles [Salmon,N] |
| 18887 | The perfect case of direct reference is a variable which has been assigned a value [Salmon,N] |
| 18885 | Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism [Salmon,N] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 16624 | Stripped and passive matter is just a human invention [Bacon] |
| 18891 | Nothing in the direct theory of reference blocks anti-essentialism; water structure might have been different [Salmon,N] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| 7399 | Even without religion, there are many guides to morality [Bacon] |