113 ideas
19090 | If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty] |
2557 | Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty] |
6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
2556 | Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty] |
19215 | Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks] |
4726 | Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady] |
14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
2549 | For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty] |
19205 | 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks] |
14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
19209 | Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks] |
19208 | The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks] |
19207 | Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks] |
14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
6143 | Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks] |
4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
6135 | A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks] |
14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
6145 | Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks] |
4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
6124 | I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks] |
6134 | Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks] |
14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
14229 | Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins] |
6142 | The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks] |
14472 | If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson] |
14469 | Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks] |
6137 | Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks] |
6127 | 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks] |
6131 | Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks] |
6132 | Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks] |
6141 | There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks] |
6130 | 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks] |
6138 | It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks] |
6128 | Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks] |
14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
19214 | In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks] |
6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
6150 | The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks] |
2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
2566 | You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty] |
2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
2554 | Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty] |
4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
6144 | You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks] |
6140 | Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks] |
6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |
6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |
4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
2565 | Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty] |
19217 | I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks] |
19203 | A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks] |
2560 | Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty] |
2562 | A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty] |
2559 | Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty] |
19200 | Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks] |
19206 | 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks] |
19202 | Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks] |
19204 | True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks] |
19210 | The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks] |
19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
19212 | Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks] |
19213 | We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks] |
2558 | Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty] |
17960 | Eternalism says all times are equally real, and future and past objects and properties are real [Merricks] |
17961 | Growing block has a subjective present and a growing edge - but these could come apart [Merricks, by PG] |
14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |
14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |