84 ideas
15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
9935 | Mathematical truth is always compromising between ordinary language and sensible epistemology [Benacerraf] |
13412 | Obtaining numbers by abstraction is impossible - there are too many; only a rule could give them, in order [Benacerraf] |
13413 | We must explain how we know so many numbers, and recognise ones we haven't met before [Benacerraf] |
9901 | Numbers can't be sets if there is no agreement on which sets they are [Benacerraf] |
9912 | There are no such things as numbers [Benacerraf] |
13411 | If numbers are basically the cardinals (Frege-Russell view) you could know some numbers in isolation [Benacerraf] |
9151 | Benacerraf says numbers are defined by their natural ordering [Benacerraf, by Fine,K] |
13891 | To understand finite cardinals, it is necessary and sufficient to understand progressions [Benacerraf, by Wright,C] |
17904 | A set has k members if it one-one corresponds with the numbers less than or equal to k [Benacerraf] |
17906 | To explain numbers you must also explain cardinality, the counting of things [Benacerraf] |
9898 | We can count intransitively (reciting numbers) without understanding transitive counting of items [Benacerraf] |
17903 | Someone can recite numbers but not know how to count things; but not vice versa [Benacerraf] |
9897 | The application of a system of numbers is counting and measurement [Benacerraf] |
9900 | For Zermelo 3 belongs to 17, but for Von Neumann it does not [Benacerraf] |
9899 | The successor of x is either x and all its members, or just the unit set of x [Benacerraf] |
8697 | Disputes about mathematical objects seem irrelevant, and mathematicians cannot resolve them [Benacerraf, by Friend] |
8304 | No particular pair of sets can tell us what 'two' is, just by one-to-one correlation [Benacerraf, by Lowe] |
9906 | If ordinal numbers are 'reducible to' some set-theory, then which is which? [Benacerraf] |
13415 | An adequate account of a number must relate it to its series [Benacerraf] |
9907 | If any recursive sequence will explain ordinals, then it seems to be the structure which matters [Benacerraf] |
9908 | The job is done by the whole system of numbers, so numbers are not objects [Benacerraf] |
9909 | The number 3 defines the role of being third in a progression [Benacerraf] |
9911 | Number words no more have referents than do the parts of a ruler [Benacerraf] |
8925 | Mathematical objects only have properties relating them to other 'elements' of the same structure [Benacerraf] |
9938 | How can numbers be objects if order is their only property? [Benacerraf, by Putnam] |
9910 | Number-as-objects works wholesale, but fails utterly object by object [Benacerraf] |
17927 | Realists have semantics without epistemology, anti-realists epistemology but bad semantics [Benacerraf, by Colyvan] |
9936 | The platonist view of mathematics doesn't fit our epistemology very well [Benacerraf] |
9903 | Number words are not predicates, as they function very differently from adjectives [Benacerraf] |
9904 | The set-theory paradoxes mean that 17 can't be the class of all classes with 17 members [Benacerraf] |
22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
9905 | Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf] |
15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
2170 | Homer does not distinguish between soul and body [Homer, by Williams,B] |
22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
21819 | Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus] |
6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
11388 | Let there be one ruler [Homer] |
22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
14829 | Homer so enjoys the company of the gods that he must have been deeply irreligious [Homer, by Nietzsche] |