37 ideas
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
14329 | Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
9032 | Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [Price,HH] |
9035 | If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH] |
9034 | There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH] |
9036 | There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH] |
9037 | Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it [Price,HH] |
9033 | Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH] |
10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
9030 | Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH] |
9029 | If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH] |
10644 | A 'felt familiarity' with universals is more primitive than abstraction [Price,HH] |
10646 | Our understanding of 'dog' or 'house' arises from a repeated experience of concomitances [Price,HH] |
9031 | The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |