44 ideas
| 13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
| 13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
| 15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
| 15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
| 15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
| 15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
| 15127 | A categorical basis could hardly explain a disposition if it had no powers of its own [Hawthorne] |
| 15123 | Is the causal profile of a property its essence? [Hawthorne] |
| 15124 | If properties are more than their powers, we could have two properties with the same power [Hawthorne] |
| 15122 | Could two different properties have the same causal profile? [Hawthorne] |
| 14590 | If we accept scattered objects such as archipelagos, why not think of cars that way? [Hawthorne] |
| 15128 | We can treat the structure/form of the world differently from the nodes/matter of the world [Hawthorne] |
| 15121 | An individual essence is a necessary and sufficient profile for a thing [Hawthorne] |
| 13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
| 14591 | Four-dimensionalists say instantaneous objects are more fundamental than long-lived ones [Hawthorne] |
| 13267 | Temporal parts is a crazy doctrine, because it entails constantly creating stuff ex nihilo [Thomson, by Koslicki] |
| 16209 | How can point-duration slices of people have beliefs or desires? [Thomson] |
| 8970 | Our notion of identical sets involves identical members, which needs absolute identity [Hawthorne] |
| 15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
| 15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
| 14589 | A modal can reverse meaning if the context is seen differently, so maybe context is all? [Hawthorne] |
| 13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
| 13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
| 19553 | Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted [Hawthorne] |
| 19551 | How can we know the heavyweight implications of normal knowledge? Must we distort 'knowledge'? [Hawthorne] |
| 19552 | We wouldn't know the logical implications of our knowledge if small risks added up to big risks [Hawthorne] |
| 19554 | Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne] |
| 15152 | To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames] |
| 15153 | Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames] |
| 13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
| 13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
| 13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
| 15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |
| 4059 | It can't be murder for a mother to perform an abortion on herself to save her own life [Thomson] |
| 4057 | A newly fertilized ovum is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree [Thomson] |
| 4695 | Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights [Thomson, by Foot] |
| 4696 | The foetus is safe in the womb, so abortion initiates its death, with the mother as the agent. [Foot on Thomson] |
| 4060 | The right to life does not bestow the right to use someone else's body to support that life [Thomson] |
| 4061 | The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but not to be killed unjustly [Thomson] |
| 4058 | Is someone's right to life diminished if they were conceived by a rape? [Thomson] |
| 4062 | No one is morally required to make huge sacrifices to keep someone else alive for nine months [Thomson] |
| 15126 | Maybe scientific causation is just generalisation about the patterns [Hawthorne] |
| 15125 | We only know the mathematical laws, but not much else [Hawthorne] |
| 14588 | Modern metaphysicians tend to think space-time points are more fundamental than space-time regions [Hawthorne] |