32 ideas
10794 | The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10786 | Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10788 | Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10799 | Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10791 | Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10790 | Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10785 | Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10795 | Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10798 | A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)] |
16014 | It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan] |
10787 | Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10789 | Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10796 | If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11181 | Aristotelian essentialism involves a 'natural' or 'causal' interpretation of modal operators [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11184 | Aristotelian essentialism is about shared properties, individuating essentialism about distinctive properties [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11180 | Essentialist sentences are not theorems of modal logic, and can even be false [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11186 | 'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11185 | 'Is essentially' has a different meaning from 'is necessarily', as they often cannot be substituted [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11182 | If essences are objects with only essential properties, they are elusive in possible worlds [Marcus (Barcan)] |
16024 | I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan] |
16023 | Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan] |
10797 | Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)] |
16015 | Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan] |
16017 | Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan] |
16016 | Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan] |
16020 | Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan] |
16018 | Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan] |
16019 | Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan] |
11183 | The use of possible worlds is to sort properties (not to individuate objects) [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11187 | In possible worlds, names are just neutral unvarying pegs for truths and predicates [Marcus (Barcan)] |
20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
11189 | Dispositional essences are special, as if an object loses them they cease to exist [Marcus (Barcan)] |