41 ideas
14092 | Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms [Rosen] |
5435 | An interpreter of a text, because of wider knowledge, can understand it better than its author [Schleiermacher, by Mautner] |
22028 | Unity emerges from understanding particulars, so understanding is prior to seeing unity [Schleiermacher] |
14100 | Figuring in the definition of a thing doesn't make it a part of that thing [Rosen] |
18851 | Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element [Rosen] |
14096 | Explanations fail to be monotonic [Rosen] |
14097 | Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen] |
14095 | Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients [Rosen] |
14093 | An 'intrinsic' property is one that depends on a thing and its parts, and not on its relations [Rosen] |
8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |
18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
18849 | Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant [Rosen] |
18850 | 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting [Rosen] |
18858 | Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another [Rosen] |
14094 | The excellent notion of metaphysical 'necessity' cannot be defined [Rosen] |
18857 | Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds [Rosen] |
18856 | Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things [Rosen] |
18848 | Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity? [Rosen] |
18855 | Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen] |
14101 | Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen] |
18853 | A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen] |
7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
14099 | 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen] |
20959 | Concepts are only analytic once the predicate is absorbed into the subject [Schleiermacher] |
7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
18854 | The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world [Rosen] |
14098 | An acid is just a proton donor [Rosen] |
7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |