100 ideas
| 21634 | Metaphysics is (supposedly) first the ontology, then in general what things are like [Hofweber] |
| 16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
| 6979 | Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson] |
| 16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
| 21666 | 'Fundamentality' is either a superficial idea, or much too obscure [Hofweber] |
| 6980 | Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson] |
| 6983 | Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson] |
| 14707 | Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter] |
| 7005 | Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson] |
| 6994 | Truth supervenes on being [Jackson] |
| 21640 | 'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely' [Hofweber] |
| 17990 | Instances of minimal truth miss out propositions inexpressible in current English [Hofweber] |
| 21657 | Since properties can have properties, some theorists rank them in 'types' [Hofweber] |
| 14352 | '¬', '&', and 'v' are truth functions: the truth of the compound is fixed by the truth of the components [Jackson] |
| 21653 | Maybe not even names are referential, but are just by used by speakers to refer [Hofweber] |
| 10001 | An adjective contributes semantically to a noun phrase [Hofweber] |
| 21636 | 'Singular terms' are not found in modern linguistics, and are not the same as noun phrases [Hofweber] |
| 21637 | If two processes are said to be identical, that doesn't make their terms refer to entities [Hofweber] |
| 16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
| 21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
| 10007 | Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber] |
| 17988 | Quantification can't all be substitutional; some reference is obviously to objects [Hofweber] |
| 10002 | '2 + 2 = 4' can be read as either singular or plural [Hofweber] |
| 21644 | Numbers are used as singular terms, as adjectives, and as symbols [Hofweber] |
| 21646 | The Amazonian Piraha language is said to have no number words [Hofweber] |
| 9998 | What is the relation of number words as singular-terms, adjectives/determiners, and symbols? [Hofweber] |
| 21665 | The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is that all numbers are composed uniquely of primes [Hofweber] |
| 21649 | How can words be used for counting if they are objects? [Hofweber] |
| 10003 | Why is arithmetic hard to learn, but then becomes easy? [Hofweber] |
| 10008 | Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, as the quantifiers are purely inferential [Hofweber] |
| 10005 | Arithmetic doesn’t simply depend on objects, since it is true of fictional objects [Hofweber] |
| 10000 | We might eliminate adjectival numbers by analysing them into blocks of quantifiers [Hofweber] |
| 21647 | Logicism makes sense of our ability to know arithmetic just by thought [Hofweber] |
| 21648 | Neo-Fregeans are dazzled by a technical result, and ignore practicalities [Hofweber] |
| 10006 | First-order logic captures the inferential relations of numbers, but not the semantics [Hofweber] |
| 6984 | Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson] |
| 21664 | Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber] |
| 21660 | Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber] |
| 21661 | There are probably ineffable facts, systematically hidden from us [Hofweber] |
| 6978 | Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson] |
| 6993 | Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson] |
| 17989 | Since properties have properties, there can be a typed or a type-free theory of them [Hofweber] |
| 8499 | Nominalists cannot translate 'red resembles pink more than blue' into particulars [Jackson] |
| 8500 | Colour resemblance isn't just resemblance between things; 'colour' must be mentioned [Jackson] |
| 21652 | Our perceptual beliefs are about ordinary objects, not about simples arranged chair-wise [Hofweber] |
| 12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
| 14633 | How do we tell a table's being contingently plastic from its being essentially plastic? [Jackson] |
| 14635 | An x is essentially F if it is F in every possible world in which it appears [Jackson] |
| 14632 | Quine may have conflated de re and de dicto essentialism, but there is a real epistemological problem [Jackson] |
| 6987 | We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson] |
| 14360 | Possible worlds for subjunctives (and dispositions), and no-truth for indicatives? [Jackson] |
| 14288 | 'If A,B' affirms that A⊃B, and also that this wouldn't change if A were certain [Jackson, by Edgington] |
| 13769 | Conditionals are truth-functional, but should only be asserted when they are confident [Jackson, by Edgington] |
| 13858 | The truth-functional account of conditionals is right, if the antecedent is really acceptable [Jackson, by Edgington] |
| 14289 | There are some assertable conditionals one would reject if one learned the antecedent [Jackson, by Edgington] |
| 14353 | Modus ponens requires that A→B is F when A is T and B is F [Jackson] |
| 14354 | When A and B have the same truth value, A→B is true, because A→A is a logical truth [Jackson] |
| 14355 | (A&B)→A is a logical truth, even if antecedent false and consequent true, so it is T if A is F and B is T [Jackson] |
| 14358 | In the possible worlds account of conditionals, modus ponens and modus tollens are validated [Jackson] |
| 14359 | Only assertions have truth-values, and conditionals are not proper assertions [Jackson] |
| 14357 | Possible worlds account, unlike A⊃B, says nothing about when A is false [Jackson] |
| 14356 | We can't insist that A is relevant to B, as conditionals can express lack of relevance [Jackson] |
| 21663 | Counterfactuals are essential for planning, and learning from mistakes [Hofweber] |
| 14631 | How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false? [Jackson] |
| 6988 | Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson] |
| 6975 | Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson] |
| 6982 | Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson] |
| 6991 | We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson] |
| 4894 | I say Mary does not have new knowledge, but knows an old fact in a new way [Perry on Jackson] |
| 4895 | Is it unfair that physicalist knowledge can be written down, but dualist knowledge can't be [Perry on Jackson] |
| 4886 | Mary knows all the physical facts of seeing red, but experiencing it is new knowledge [Jackson] |
| 10004 | Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber] |
| 6976 | In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson] |
| 6986 | Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson] |
| 6992 | If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson] |
| 7880 | If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau on Jackson] |
| 7378 | No one bothers to imagine what it would really be like to have ALL the physical information [Dennett on Jackson] |
| 7377 | Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something [Jackson] |
| 6996 | Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson] |
| 6977 | Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson] |
| 6990 | Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson] |
| 6985 | Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson] |
| 21654 | The "Fido"-Fido theory of meaning says every expression in a language has a referent [Hofweber] |
| 21641 | Inferential role semantics is an alternative to semantics that connects to the world [Hofweber] |
| 21638 | Syntactic form concerns the focus of the sentence, as well as the truth-conditions [Hofweber] |
| 6995 | Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson] |
| 21658 | Properties can be expressed in a language despite the absence of a single word for them [Hofweber] |
| 21659 | 'Being taller than this' is a predicate which can express many different properties [Hofweber] |
| 21655 | Compositonality is a way to build up the truth-conditions of a sentence [Hofweber] |
| 6989 | I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson] |
| 21656 | Proposition have no content, because they are content [Hofweber] |
| 21635 | Without propositions there can be no beliefs or desires [Hofweber] |
| 21662 | Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber] |
| 21645 | 'Semantic type coercion' is selecting the reading of a word to make the best sense [Hofweber] |
| 21639 | 'Background deletion' is appropriately omitting background from an answer [Hofweber] |
| 17991 | Holism says language can't be translated; the expressibility hypothesis says everything can [Hofweber] |
| 6998 | Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson] |
| 6997 | Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson] |
| 7000 | Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson] |
| 6999 | It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson] |