21 ideas
11193 | Understanding begins with the notion of being and essence [Avicenna] |
9921 | 'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen] |
9924 | Modal logic gives an account of metalogical possibility, not metaphysical possibility [Burgess/Rosen] |
9933 | The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen] |
9928 | Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen] |
9926 | A relation is either a set of sets of sets, or a set of sets [Burgess/Rosen] |
9932 | The paradoxes no longer seem crucial in critiques of set theory [Burgess/Rosen] |
9923 | We should talk about possible existence, rather than actual existence, of numbers [Burgess/Rosen] |
9925 | Structuralism and nominalism are normally rivals, but might work together [Burgess/Rosen] |
9934 | Number words became nouns around the time of Plato [Burgess/Rosen] |
9918 | Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree [Burgess/Rosen] |
9929 | Much of what science says about concrete entities is 'abstraction-laden' [Burgess/Rosen] |
9927 | Mathematics has ascended to higher and higher levels of abstraction [Burgess/Rosen] |
9930 | Abstraction is on a scale, of sets, to attributes, to type-formulas, to token-formulas [Burgess/Rosen] |
11209 | The simple's whatness is its very self [Avicenna] |
11204 | The ultimate material of things has the unity of total formlessness [Avicenna] |
15036 | An essence can either be universal (in the mind) or singular (in concrete particulars) [Avicenna, by Panaccio] |
7458 | The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking] |
3441 | If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace] |
9919 | The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen] |
9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |