53 ideas
| 3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
| 3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
| 3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
| 3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
| 3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
| 10405 | In the iterative conception of sets, they form a natural hierarchy [Swoyer] |
| 10407 | Logical Form explains differing logical behaviour of similar sentences [Swoyer] |
| 3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
| 3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
| 14592 | Some abstract things have a beginning and end, so may exist in time (though not space) [Swoyer] |
| 3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
| 16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 10421 | Supervenience is nowadays seen as between properties, rather than linguistic [Swoyer] |
| 16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
| 14594 | Ontologists seek existence and identity conditions, and modal and epistemic status for a thing [Swoyer] |
| 10410 | Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance [Swoyer] |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 10399 | If a property such as self-identity can only be in one thing, it can't be a universal [Swoyer] |
| 10416 | Can properties have parts? [Swoyer] |
| 14595 | Can properties exemplify other properties? [Swoyer] |
| 10417 | There are only first-order properties ('red'), and none of higher-order ('coloured') [Swoyer] |
| 10413 | The best-known candidate for an identity condition for properties is necessary coextensiveness [Swoyer] |
| 10402 | Various attempts are made to evade universals being wholly present in different places [Swoyer] |
| 3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
| 10400 | Conceptualism says words like 'honesty' refer to concepts, not to properties [Swoyer] |
| 10403 | If properties are abstract objects, then their being abstract exemplifies being abstract [Swoyer] |
| 14593 | Quantum field theory suggests that there are, fundamentally, no individual things [Swoyer] |
| 3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
| 3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
| 10406 | One might hope to reduce possible worlds to properties [Swoyer] |
| 3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
| 3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
| 3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
| 3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
| 10404 | Extreme empiricists can hardly explain anything [Swoyer] |
| 10408 | Intensions are functions which map possible worlds to sets of things denoted by an expression [Swoyer] |
| 10409 | Research suggests that concepts rely on typical examples [Swoyer] |
| 10401 | The F and G of logic cover a huge range of natural language combinations [Swoyer] |
| 10420 | Maybe a proposition is just a property with all its places filled [Swoyer] |
| 10412 | If laws are mere regularities, they give no grounds for future prediction [Swoyer] |
| 10411 | Two properties can have one power, and one property can have two powers [Swoyer] |
| 3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
| 3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |