85 ideas
19275 | You cannot understand what exists without understanding possibility and necessity [Hale] |
10308 | Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale] |
4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
19291 | A canonical defintion specifies the type of thing, and what distinguish this specimen [Hale] |
10314 | An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase [Hale] |
19301 | With a negative free logic, we can dispense with the Barcan formulae [Hale] |
19297 | The two Barcan principles are easily proved in fairly basic modal logic [Hale] |
18189 | ZFC could contain a contradiction, and it can never prove its own consistency [MacLane] |
19296 | If second-order variables range over sets, those are just objects; properties and relations aren't sets [Hale] |
19289 | Maybe conventionalism applies to meaning, but not to the truth of propositions expressed [Hale] |
10316 | We should decide whether singular terms are genuine by their usage [Hale] |
10312 | Often the same singular term does not ensure reliable inference [Hale] |
10313 | Plenty of clear examples have singular terms with no ontological commitment [Hale] |
10322 | If singular terms can't be language-neutral, then we face a relativity about their objects [Hale] |
19298 | Unlike axiom proofs, natural deduction proofs needn't focus on logical truths and theorems [Hale] |
10632 | The real numbers may be introduced by abstraction as ratios of quantities [Hale, by Hale/Wright] |
19295 | Add Hume's principle to logic, to get numbers; arithmetic truths rest on the nature of the numbers [Hale] |
19281 | Interesting supervenience must characterise the base quite differently from what supervenes on it [Hale] |
10512 | The abstract/concrete distinction is based on what is perceivable, causal and located [Hale] |
10517 | Colours and points seem to be both concrete and abstract [Hale] |
10519 | The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names [Hale] |
10520 | Token-letters and token-words are concrete objects, type-letters and type-words abstract [Hale] |
10524 | There is a hierarchy of abstraction, based on steps taken by equivalence relations [Hale] |
4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
19278 | There is no gap between a fact that p, and it is true that p; so we only have the truth-condtions for p [Hale] |
4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
10318 | Realists take universals to be the referrents of both adjectives and of nouns [Hale] |
10511 | It is doubtful if one entity, a universal, can be picked out by both predicates and abstract nouns [Hale] |
10521 | If F can't have location, there is no problem of things having F in different locations [Hale] |
4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
10310 | Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated [Hale] |
4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
10514 | If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract [Hale] |
10518 | Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not [Hale] |
10513 | Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal [Hale] |
10523 | Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated [Hale] |
10307 | The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage [Hale] |
10315 | We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?' [Hale] |
19302 | If a chair could be made of slightly different material, that could lead to big changes [Hale] |
10522 | The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations [Hale] |
10321 | We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale] |
4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
15086 | Absolute necessity might be achievable either logically or metaphysically [Hale] |
19290 | Absolute necessities are necessarily necessary [Hale] |
8261 | Maybe not-p is logically possible, but p is metaphysically necessary, so the latter is not absolute [Hale] |
15080 | 'Relative' necessity is just a logical consequence of some statements ('strong' if they are all true) [Hale] |
15081 | A strong necessity entails a weaker one, but not conversely; possibilities go the other way [Hale] |
19286 | 'Absolute necessity' is when there is no restriction on the things which necessitate p [Hale] |
19288 | Logical and metaphysical necessities differ in their vocabulary, and their underlying entities [Hale] |
15082 | Metaphysical necessity says there is no possibility of falsehood [Hale] |
15088 | Logical necessities are true in virtue of the nature of all logical concepts [Hale] |
15085 | 'Broadly' logical necessities are derived (in a structure) entirely from the concepts [Hale] |
19285 | Logical necessity is something which is true, no matter what else is the case [Hale] |
19287 | Maybe each type of logic has its own necessity, gradually becoming broader [Hale] |
12432 | Explanation of necessity must rest on something necessary or something contingent [Hale] |
12434 | Why is this necessary, and what is necessity in general; why is this necessary truth true, and why necessary? [Hale] |
12435 | The explanation of a necessity can be by a truth (which may only happen to be a necessary truth) [Hale] |
19282 | It seems that we cannot show that modal facts depend on non-modal facts [Hale] |
12433 | If necessity rests on linguistic conventions, those are contingent, so there is no necessity [Hale] |
15087 | Conceptual necessities are made true by all concepts [Hale] |
12436 | Concept-identities explain how we know necessities, not why they are necessary [Hale] |
19276 | The big challenge for essentialist views of modality is things having necessary existence [Hale] |
19293 | Essentialism doesn't explain necessity reductively; it explains all necessities in terms of a few basic natures [Hale] |
19294 | If necessity derives from essences, how do we explain the necessary existence of essences? [Hale] |
19279 | What are these worlds, that being true in all of them makes something necessary? [Hale] |
19299 | Possible worlds make every proposition true or false, which endorses classical logic [Hale] |
4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
19300 | The molecules may explain the water, but they are not what 'water' means [Hale] |
4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |