112 ideas
9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
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] |
9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
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] |
14334 | Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford] |
14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
14333 | Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford] |
14336 | Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford] |
14315 | Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford] |
14332 | There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford] |
14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford] |
14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
14313 | All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford] |
14318 | Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford] |
14293 | Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford] |
14326 | Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford] |
14298 | Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford] |
14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
14291 | Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford] |
14299 | There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford] |
14323 | If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford] |
14328 | Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford] |
14331 | Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford] |
9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
18617 | Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford] |
14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
18618 | Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford] |
18619 | Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford] |
18620 | Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford] |
14309 | Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford] |
14311 | Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford] |
451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
14319 | Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford] |
14342 | General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford] |
14322 | If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford] |
14337 | Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford] |
14343 | To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford] |
14320 | Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford] |
14324 | Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford] |
9919 | The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen] |
555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
19068 | Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford] |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
14338 | In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford] |
9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
14339 | Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford] |
14341 | Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford] |
9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
14340 | It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford] |
9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
14345 | The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford] |
9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
14307 | Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford] |
9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |
22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |