61 ideas
| 19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
| 19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
| 19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
| 19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
| 19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
| 19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
| 19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
| 17377 | All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré] |
| 17376 | We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré] |
| 19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
| 17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
| 19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
| 19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
| 19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
| 19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
| 17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
| 17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
| 17390 | Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré] |
| 17389 | A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré] |
| 17388 | It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré] |
| 19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
| 19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
| 19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
| 19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
| 17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
| 17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
| 19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
| 19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
| 19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
| 17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
| 19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
| 19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
| 19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
| 23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
| 19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
| 19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
| 17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
| 17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
| 19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
| 19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
| 22668 | Apprehension is a complex intellect grasping the essence of a complex object [Holt,L] |
| 17374 | The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré] |
| 19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
| 19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
| 17378 | Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré] |
| 17381 | Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré] |
| 17385 | Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré] |
| 17375 | Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré] |
| 17379 | Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré] |
| 17384 | Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré] |
| 17387 | Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré] |
| 17382 | Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré] |
| 17380 | Wales may count as fish [Dupré] |
| 19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
| 19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
| 17993 | Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter] |
| 19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
| 19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |