39 ideas
| 12442 | 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker [Azzouni] |
| 12439 | Truth is dispensable, by replacing truth claims with the sentence itself [Azzouni] |
| 12437 | Truth lets us assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit [Azzouni] |
| 12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
| 12447 | That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one [Azzouni] |
| 12445 | If fictional objects really don't exist, then they aren't abstract objects [Azzouni] |
| 12449 | Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences [Azzouni] |
| 12440 | If objectual quantifiers ontologically commit, so does the metalanguage for its semantics [Azzouni] |
| 12438 | In the vernacular there is no unequivocal ontological commitment [Azzouni] |
| 12441 | We only get ontology from semantics if we have already smuggled it in [Azzouni] |
| 8502 | Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt] |
| 8503 | The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt] |
| 8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
| 12448 | Things that don't exist don't have any properties [Azzouni] |
| 17368 | Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt] |
| 17370 | Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt] |
| 9354 | Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt] |
| 19565 | How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt] |
| 9353 | We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt] |
| 9356 | The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt] |
| 19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
| 5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
| 5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
| 5271 | Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham] |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| 3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
| 3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
| 20977 | Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham] |
| 3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
| 21003 | Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham] |
| 20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |
| 3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
| 17371 | Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt] |
| 12450 | The periodic table not only defines the elements, but also excludes other possible elements [Azzouni] |
| 17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
| 17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
| 17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
| 17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
| 3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |