34 ideas
| 12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
| 12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
| 10429 | It is best to say that a name designates iff there is something for it to designate [Sainsbury] |
| 10425 | Definite descriptions may not be referring expressions, since they can fail to refer [Sainsbury] |
| 10438 | Definite descriptions are usually rigid in subject, but not in predicate, position [Sainsbury] |
| 12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
| 12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
| 8983 | If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury] |
| 8986 | We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury] |
| 12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
| 12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
| 12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
| 8982 | Vague concepts are concepts without boundaries [Sainsbury] |
| 8984 | If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury] |
| 8985 | Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury] |
| 12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
| 12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
| 12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
| 12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
| 12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
| 12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
| 12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| 12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
| 12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
| 12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
| 4921 | Quantum states in microtubules could bind brain activity to produce consciousness [Penrose] |
| 10432 | A new usage of a name could arise from a mistaken baptism of nothing [Sainsbury] |
| 10434 | Even a quantifier like 'someone' can be used referentially [Sainsbury] |
| 10431 | Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury] |
| 12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
| 12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
| 12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
| 12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |