27 ideas
| 1403 | A rational donkey would starve to death between two totally identical piles of hay [Buridan, by PG] |
| 8439 | Maybe each event has only one possible causal history [Bennett] |
| 8440 | Maybe an event's time of occurrence is essential to it [Bennett] |
| 8978 | Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett] |
| 16678 | Without magnitude a thing would retain its parts, but they would have no location [Buridan] |
| 16793 | A thing is (less properly) the same over time if each part is succeeded by another [Buridan] |
| 16726 | Why can't we deduce secondary qualities from primary ones, if they cause them? [Buridan] |
| 16577 | Induction is not demonstration, because not all of the instances can be observed [Buridan] |
| 16576 | Science is based on induction, for general truths about fire, rhubarb and magnets [Buridan] |
| 12790 | Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan] |
| 12789 | Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan] |
| 14388 | Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan] |
| 12787 | Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14384 | We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan] |
| 14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |
| 14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
| 8441 | Delaying a fire doesn't cause it, but hastening it might [Bennett] |
| 8436 | Either cause and effect are subsumed under a conditional because of properties, or it is counterfactual [Bennett] |
| 8435 | Causes are between events ('the explosion') or between facts/states of affairs ('a bomb dropped') [Bennett] |
| 10364 | Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett] |
| 8437 | The full counterfactual story asserts a series of events, because counterfactuals are not transitive [Bennett] |
| 8438 | A counterfactual about an event implies something about the event's essence [Bennett] |
| 14382 | Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan] |
| 14385 | Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan] |
| 14383 | A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan] |
| 8592 | Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not [Bennett, by Shoemaker] |