112 ideas
21887 | Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida] |
21888 | Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida] |
21896 | Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May] |
9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
21893 | Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida] |
21892 | Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida] |
20925 | Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
20934 | Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
21895 | Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida] |
8210 | Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them [Derrida] |
8211 | The movement of 'différance' is the root of all the oppositional concepts in our language [Derrida] |
6840 | Derrida came to believe in the undeconstructability of justice, which cannot be relativised [Derrida, by Critchley] |
21934 | The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
21883 | Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida] |
21882 | Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida] |
8216 | Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes [Derrida] |
21881 | We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida] |
9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
8213 | I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process [Derrida] |
11257 | The Pythagoreans were the first to offer definitions [Politis, by Politis] |
11235 | 'True of' is applicable to things, while 'true' is applicable to words [Politis] |
4756 | Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel] |
21877 | True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida] |
21889 | 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida] |
21878 | Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida] |
21879 | Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida] |
9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
11277 | Maybe 'What is being? is confusing because we can't ask what non-being is like [Politis] |
14334 | Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford] |
14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
14333 | Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford] |
14336 | Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford] |
14315 | Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford] |
14332 | There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford] |
14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford] |
14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
14313 | All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford] |
14318 | Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford] |
14298 | Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford] |
14293 | Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford] |
14326 | Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford] |
14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
14291 | Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford] |
14299 | There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford] |
14323 | If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford] |
14328 | Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford] |
14331 | Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford] |
9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
18617 | Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford] |
11248 | Necessary truths can be two-way relational, where essential truths are one-way or intrinsic [Politis] |
14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
18618 | Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford] |
18619 | Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford] |
18620 | Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford] |
14309 | Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford] |
14311 | Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford] |
14319 | Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford] |
14342 | General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford] |
14322 | If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford] |
14337 | Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford] |
14343 | To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford] |
14320 | Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford] |
14324 | Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford] |
21890 | Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida] |
21880 | 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida] |
21932 | 'Différance' is the interwoven history of each sign [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
21886 | Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida] |
21930 | For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida] |
21884 | Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida] |
21935 | The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida] |
21933 | Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
21894 | Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida] |
8212 | Everything that is experienced in consciousness is meaning [Derrida] |
21929 | Derrida focuses on ambiguity, but talks of 'dissemination', not traditional multiple meanings [Derrida] |
21931 | 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
21885 | Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida] |
21891 | The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida] |
21936 | A community must consist of singular persons, with nothing in common [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
21937 | Can there be democratic friendship without us all becoming identical? [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
19068 | Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford] |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
14338 | In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford] |
9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
14339 | Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford] |
14341 | Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford] |
9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
14340 | It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford] |
9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
14345 | The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford] |
9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
14307 | Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford] |
9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |