51 ideas
13134 | We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff] |
22886 | The modern idea of 'limit' allows infinite quantities to have a finite sum [Bardon] |
22914 | An equally good question would be why there was nothing instead of something [Bardon] |
16554 | Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
13124 | Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff] |
13117 | How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff] |
13116 | Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff] |
13118 | Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff] |
13125 | Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff] |
13126 | Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff] |
13130 | Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff] |
13131 | The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff] |
13123 | All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff] |
13115 | Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff] |
13119 | Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff] |
13135 | A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff] |
16556 | Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
13129 | Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff] |
16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16528 | Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16529 | Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16530 | A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16553 | Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16559 | Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
16561 | We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
22902 | Why does an effect require a prior event if the prior event isn't a cause? [Bardon] |
16558 | Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
22905 | Becoming disordered is much easier for a system than becoming ordered [Bardon] |
22913 | The universe expands, so space-time is enlarging [Bardon] |
22889 | We should treat time as adverbial, so we don't experience time, we experience things temporally [Bardon, by Bardon] |
22900 | How can we question the passage of time, if the question takes time to ask? [Bardon] |
22898 | What is time's passage relative to, and how fast does it pass? [Bardon] |
22897 | The A-series says a past event is becoming more past, but how can it do that? [Bardon] |
22901 | The B-series needs a revised view of causes, laws and explanations [Bardon] |
22896 | The B-series is realist about time, but idealist about its passage [Bardon] |
22903 | The B-series adds directionality when it accepts 'earlier' and 'later' [Bardon] |
22910 | To define time's arrow by causation, we need a timeless definition of causation [Bardon] |
22909 | We judge memories to be of the past because the events cause the memories [Bardon] |
22904 | The psychological arrow of time is the direction from our memories to our anticipations [Bardon] |
22906 | The direction of entropy is probabilistic, not necessary, so cannot be identical to time's arrow [Bardon] |
22907 | It is arbitrary to reverse time in a more orderly universe, but not in a sub-system of it [Bardon] |
22883 | It seems hard to understand change without understanding time first [Bardon] |
22890 | We experience static states (while walking round a house) and observe change (ship leaving dock) [Bardon] |
22884 | The motion of a thing should be a fact in the present moment [Bardon] |
22892 | Experiences of motion may be overlapping, thus stretching out the experience [Bardon] |
22911 | At least eternal time gives time travellers a possible destination [Bardon] |
22912 | Time travel is not a paradox if we include it in the eternal continuum of events [Bardon] |
22882 | We use calendars for the order of events, and clocks for their passing [Bardon] |