92 ideas
| 9786 | Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R] |
| 21239 | Philosophers are marked by a joint love of evidence and ambiguity [Merleau-Ponty] |
| 9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
| 9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
| 9784 | A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R] |
| 13941 | Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R] |
| 13942 | Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R] |
| 9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
| 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] |
| 9783 | While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes [Cartwright,R] |
| 9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
| 14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
| 14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
| 14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
| 14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [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] |
| 14961 | Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart [Cartwright,R] |
| 14962 | Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts [Cartwright,R] |
| 13952 | Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R] |
| 14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
| 13954 | The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R] |
| 12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
| 13955 | Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R] |
| 13953 | An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R] |
| 13945 | A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R] |
| 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] |
| 21862 | Consciousness is based on 'I can', not on 'I think' [Merleau-Ponty] |
| 20750 | The mind does not unite perceptions, because they flow into one another [Merleau-Ponty] |
| 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] |
| 13948 | For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R] |
| 13950 | People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R] |
| 13944 | We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R] |
| 13947 | 'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R] |
| 13943 | We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R] |
| 13946 | To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R] |
| 13951 | Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [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] |