138 ideas
421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
22334 | Analysis must include definitions, search for simples, concept analysis, and Kant's analysis [Glock] |
6779 | Instrumentalists say distinctions between observation and theory vanish with ostensive definition [Bird] |
414 | Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus] |
425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
9449 | The plausible Barcan formula implies modality in the actual world [Bird] |
1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
9501 | If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird] |
9500 | If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird] |
6780 | Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird] |
9502 | There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird] |
9477 | Categorical properties are not modally fixed, but change across possible worlds [Bird] |
9490 | The categoricalist idea is that a property is only individuated by being itself [Bird] |
9495 | If we abstractly define a property, that doesn't mean some object could possess it [Bird] |
9492 | Categoricalists take properties to be quiddities, with no essential difference between them [Bird] |
9503 | To name an abundant property is either a Fregean concept, or a simple predicate [Bird] |
14540 | Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum] |
9450 | If all properties are potencies, and stimuli and manifestation characterise them, there is a regress [Bird] |
9498 | The essence of a potency involves relations, e.g. mass, to impressed force and acceleration [Bird] |
15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
9474 | A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird] |
9475 | A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird] |
9499 | Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird] |
9486 | Why should a universal's existence depend on instantiation in an existing particular? [Bird] |
9472 | Resemblance itself needs explanation, presumably in terms of something held in common [Bird] |
13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
427 | It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus] |
11091 | You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus] |
2064 | If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus] |
9482 | If the laws necessarily imply p, that doesn't give a new 'nomological' necessity [Bird] |
9481 | Logical necessitation is not a kind of necessity; George Orwell not being Eric Blair is not a real possibility [Bird] |
6796 | Subjective probability measures personal beliefs; objective probability measures the chance of an event happening [Bird] |
6797 | Objective probability of tails measures the bias of the coin, not our beliefs about it [Bird] |
9505 | Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird] |
9491 | Haecceitism says identity is independent of qualities and without essence [Bird] |
22332 | German and British idealism is not about individual ideas, but the intelligibility of reality [Glock] |
430 | Senses are no use if the soul is corrupt [Heraclitus] |
1500 | When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
6800 | Many philosophers rate justification as a more important concept than knowledge [Bird] |
6786 | As science investigates more phenomena, the theories it needs decreases [Bird] |
417 | Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus] |
426 | Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus] |
431 | Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus] |
6792 | If theories need observation, and observations need theories, how do we start? [Bird] |
6757 | Explanation predicts after the event; prediction explains before the event [Bird] |
6777 | Realists say their theories involve truth and the existence of their phenomena [Bird] |
6804 | There is no agreement on scientific method - because there is no such thing [Bird] |
6805 | Relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity [Bird] |
6778 | Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant [Bird] |
6775 | Induction is inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law [Bird] |
6790 | Anything justifying inferences from observed to unobserved must itself do that [Bird] |
6791 | If Hume is right about induction, there is no scientific knowledge [Bird] |
6738 | Any conclusion can be drawn from an induction, if we use grue-like predicates [Bird] |
6739 | Several months of observing beech trees supports the deciduous and evergreen hypotheses [Bird] |
6799 | We normally learn natural kinds from laws, but Goodman shows laws require prior natural kinds [Bird] |
6798 | Bayesianism claims to find rationality and truth in induction, and show how science works [Bird] |
6752 | The objective component of explanations is the things that must exist for the explanation [Bird] |
6754 | We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things [Bird] |
9487 | We can't reject all explanations because of a regress; inexplicable A can still explain B [Bird] |
6750 | Explanations are causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian or functional [Bird] |
6761 | Contrastive explanations say why one thing happened but not another [Bird] |
6758 | 'Covering law' explanations only work if no other explanations are to be found [Bird] |
6759 | Livers always accompany hearts, but they don't explain hearts [Bird] |
6756 | Probabilistic-statistical explanations don't entail the explanandum, but makes it more likely [Bird] |
6760 | An operation might reduce the probability of death, yet explain a death [Bird] |
6785 | Inference to the Best Explanation is done with facts, so it has to be realist [Bird] |
6788 | Maybe bad explanations are the true ones, in this messy world [Bird] |
6787 | Which explanation is 'best' is bound to be subjective, and no guide to truth [Bird] |
6751 | Maybe explanation is so subjective that it cannot be a part of science [Bird] |
17527 | Causation seems to be an innate concept (or acquired very early) [Bird] |
22336 | We might say that the family resemblance is just a consequence of meaning-as-use [Glock] |
22335 | The variety of uses of 'game' may be that it has several meanings, and isn't a single concept [Glock] |
429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
419 | If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since nothing leads to it [Heraclitus] |
415 | If happiness is bodily pleasure, then oxen are happy when they have vetch to eat [Heraclitus] |
5155 | It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure [Heraclitus] |
433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
424 | Reason tells us that all things are one [Heraclitus] |
5096 | Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
17539 | The sayings of Heraclitus are still correct, if we replace 'fire' with 'energy' [Heraclitus, by Heisenberg] |
3054 | Heraclitus said fire could be transformed to create the other lower elements [Heraclitus, by Diog. Laertius] |
6767 | Rubies and sapphires are both corundum, with traces of metals varying their colours [Bird] |
6768 | Tin is not one natural kind, but appears to be 21, depending on isotope [Bird] |
6770 | Membership of a purely random collection cannot be used as an explanation [Bird] |
6771 | Natural kinds may overlap, or be sub-kinds of one another [Bird] |
6776 | Natural kinds are those that we use in induction [Bird] |
6773 | If F is a universal appearing in a natural law, then Fs form a natural kind [Bird] |
6769 | In the Kripke-Putnam view only nuclear physicists can know natural kinds [Bird] |
6774 | Darwinism suggests that we should have a native ability to detect natural kinds [Bird] |
15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
6764 | Nominal essence of a natural kind is the features that make it fit its name [Bird] |
6766 | Jadeite and nephrite are superficially identical, but have different composition [Bird] |
6808 | Reference to scientific terms is by explanatory role, not by descriptions [Bird] |
17528 | The dispositional account explains causation, as stimulation and manifestation of dispositions [Bird] |
9493 | We should explain causation by powers, not powers by causation [Bird] |
6753 | Laws are more fundamental in science than causes, and laws will explain causes [Bird] |
9494 | Singularism about causes is wrong, as the universals involved imply laws [Bird] |
17526 | The counterfactual approach makes no distinction between cause and pre-condition [Bird] |
6762 | Newton's laws cannot be confirmed individually, but only in combinations [Bird] |
6763 | Parapsychology is mere speculation, because it offers no mechanisms for its working [Bird] |
6772 | Existence requires laws, as inertia or gravity are needed for mass or matter [Bird] |
9507 | Laws are explanatory relationships of things, which supervene on their essences [Bird] |
9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |
6746 | There may be many laws, each with only a few instances [Bird] |
6740 | 'All uranium lumps are small' is a law, but 'all gold lumps are small' is not [Bird] |
6741 | There can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental [Bird] |
6742 | A law might have no instances, if it was about things that only exist momentarily [Bird] |
6743 | If laws are just instances, the law should either have gaps, or join the instances arbitrarily [Bird] |
6744 | Where is the regularity in a law predicting nuclear decay? [Bird] |
6747 | Laws cannot explain instances if they are regularities, as something can't explain itself [Bird] |
6748 | Similar appearance of siblings is a regularity, but shared parents is what links them [Bird] |
6749 | We can only infer a true regularity if something binds the instances together [Bird] |
6801 | Accidental regularities are not laws, and an apparent regularity may not be actual [Bird] |
6803 | If we only infer laws from regularities among observations, we can't infer unobservable entities. [Bird] |
9496 | That other diamonds are hard does not explain why this one is [Bird] |
9479 | Dispositional essentialism says laws (and laws about laws) are guaranteed regularities [Bird] |
6745 | A regularity is only a law if it is part of a complete system which is simple and strong [Bird] |
6802 | With strange enough predicates, anything could be made out to be a regularity [Bird] |
9473 | Laws cannot offer unified explanations if they don't involve universals [Bird] |
9484 | If the universals for laws must be instantiated, a vanishing particular could destroy a law [Bird] |
9506 | Salt necessarily dissolves in water, because of the law which makes the existence of salt possible [Bird] |
23713 | Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers [Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
6789 | If flame colour is characteristic of a metal, that is an empirical claim needing justification [Bird] |
9489 | Essentialism can't use conditionals to explain regularities, because of possible interventions [Bird] |
12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
6807 | In Newton mass is conserved, but in Einstein it can convert into energy [Bird] |
9504 | The relational view of space-time doesn't cover times and places where things could be [Bird] |
420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
15659 | Purifying yourself with blood is as crazy as using mud to wash off mud [Heraclitus] |
1501 | In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus] |