71 ideas
| 2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| 2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| 2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
| 2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| 2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
| 2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
| 2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| 2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
| 2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
| 2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
| 2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| 2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
| 2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
| 2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
| 16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
| 2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
| 23110 | Human injustice is not a permanent feature of communities [Rawls] |
| 15676 | Rawls defends the priority of right over good [Rawls, by Finlayson] |
| 4123 | A fair arrangement is one that parties can agree to without knowing how it will benefit them personally [Rawls, by Williams,B] |
| 21051 | Check your rationality by thinking of your opinion pronounced by the supreme court [Rawls] |
| 3279 | Utilitarianism inappropriately scales up the individual willingness to make sacrifices [Rawls, by Nagel] |
| 22406 | The maximisation of happiness must be done fairly [Rawls, by Smart] |
| 21137 | Rawls rejected cosmopolitanism because it doesn't respect the autonomy of 'peoples' [Rawls, by Shorten] |
| 20552 | The original position models the idea that citizens start as free and equal [Rawls, by Swift] |
| 3280 | Why does the rational agreement of the 'Original Position' in Rawls make it right? [Nagel on Rawls] |
| 18636 | Choose justice principles in ignorance of your own social situation [Rawls] |
| 18631 | All desirable social features should be equal, unless inequality favours the disadvantaged [Rawls] |
| 21119 | Power is only legitimate if it is reasonable for free equal citizens to endorse the constitution [Rawls] |
| 20538 | Utilitarians lump persons together; Rawls somewhat separates them; Nozick wholly separates them [Swift on Rawls] |
| 9277 | Rawls's account of justice relies on conventional fairness, avoiding all moral controversy [Gray on Rawls] |
| 23420 | In a pluralist society we can't expect a community united around one conception of the good [Rawls] |
| 20527 | Liberty Principle: everyone has an equal right to liberties, if compatible with others' liberties [Rawls] |
| 21018 | The social contract has problems with future generations, national boundaries, disabilities and animals [Rawls, by Nussbaum] |
| 21041 | Justice concerns not natural distributions, or our born location, but what we do about them [Rawls] |
| 23583 | If an aggression is unjust, the constraints on how it is fought are much stricter [Rawls] |
| 4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
| 4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
| 4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| 2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |