276 ideas
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
9218 | Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its pursuit of necessary truths [Sider] |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
7807 | The laws of thought are true, but they are not the axioms of logic [Bolzano, by George/Van Evra] |
7038 | A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil] |
7037 | Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil] |
15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
7004 | The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil] |
15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
13689 | 'Theorems' are formulas provable from no premises at all [Sider] |
13705 | Truth tables assume truth functionality, and are just pictures of truth functions [Sider] |
13706 | Intuitively, deontic accessibility seems not to be reflexive, but to be serial [Sider] |
13710 | In D we add that 'what is necessary is possible'; then tautologies are possible, and contradictions not necessary [Sider] |
13711 | System B introduces iterated modalities [Sider] |
13708 | S5 is the strongest system, since it has the most valid formulas, because it is easy to be S5-valid [Sider] |
13712 | Epistemic accessibility is reflexive, and allows positive and negative introspection (KK and K¬K) [Sider] |
13714 | We can treat modal worlds as different times [Sider] |
13720 | Converse Barcan Formula: □∀αφ→∀α□φ [Sider] |
13718 | The Barcan Formula ∀x□Fx→□∀xFx may be a defect in modal logic [Sider] |
13723 | System B is needed to prove the Barcan Formula [Sider] |
15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
13715 | You can employ intuitionist logic without intuitionism about mathematics [Sider] |
9987 | An aggregate in which order does not matter I call a 'set' [Bolzano] |
7035 | God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil] |
15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
13678 | The most popular account of logical consequence is the semantic or model-theoretic one [Sider] |
13679 | Maybe logical consequence is more a matter of provability than of truth-preservation [Sider] |
13682 | Maybe logical consequence is impossibility of the premises being true and the consequent false [Sider] |
13680 | Maybe logical consequence is a primitive notion [Sider] |
15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
13722 | A 'theorem' is an axiom, or the last line of a legitimate proof [Sider] |
15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
13696 | When a variable is 'free' of the quantifier, the result seems incapable of truth or falsity [Sider] |
13700 | A 'total' function must always produce an output for a given domain [Sider] |
13703 | λ can treat 'is cold and hungry' as a single predicate [Sider] |
13688 | Good axioms should be indisputable logical truths [Sider] |
13687 | No assumptions in axiomatic proofs, so no conditional proof or reductio [Sider] |
13690 | Proof by induction 'on the length of the formula' deconstructs a formula into its accepted atoms [Sider] |
13691 | Induction has a 'base case', then an 'inductive hypothesis', and then the 'inductive step' [Sider] |
15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
13685 | Natural deduction helpfully allows reasoning with assumptions [Sider] |
13686 | We can build proofs just from conclusions, rather than from plain formulae [Sider] |
13697 | Valuations in PC assign truth values to formulas relative to variable assignments [Sider] |
13684 | The semantical notion of a logical truth is validity, being true in all interpretations [Sider] |
13704 | It is hard to say which are the logical truths in modal logic, especially for iterated modal operators [Sider] |
13724 | In model theory, first define truth, then validity as truth in all models, and consequence as truth-preservation [Sider] |
13698 | In a complete logic you can avoid axiomatic proofs, by using models to show consequences [Sider] |
13699 | Compactness surprisingly says that no contradictions can emerge when the set goes infinite [Sider] |
9618 | Bolzano wanted to reduce all of geometry to arithmetic [Bolzano, by Brown,JR] |
10856 | A truly infinite quantity does not need to be a variable [Bolzano] |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
13701 | A single second-order sentence validates all of arithmetic - but this can't be proved axiomatically [Sider] |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
9830 | Bolzano began the elimination of intuition, by proving something which seemed obvious [Bolzano, by Dummett] |
14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
17265 | Philosophical proofs in mathematics establish truths, and also show their grounds [Bolzano, by Correia/Schnieder] |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
7017 | The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil] |
4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
7003 | There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil] |
15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
7045 | Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil] |
7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
13692 | A 'precisification' of a trivalent interpretation reduces it to a bivalent interpretation [Sider] |
13695 | Supervaluational logic is classical, except when it adds the 'Definitely' operator [Sider] |
13693 | A 'supervaluation' assigns further Ts and Fs, if they have been assigned in every precisification [Sider] |
13694 | We can 'sharpen' vague terms, and then define truth as true-on-all-sharpenings [Sider] |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
7020 | Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil] |
13683 | A relation is a feature of multiple objects taken together [Sider] |
21339 | We want the ontology of relations, not just a formal way of specifying them [Heil] |
21349 | Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil] |
21340 | Maybe all the other features of the world can be reduced to relations [Heil] |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
21348 | In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil] |
21351 | Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil] |
21344 | If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil] |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
7007 | I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil] |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
7015 | A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil] |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
7042 | A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil] |
4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
7023 | Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil] |
21350 | If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil] |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
7025 | Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil] |
7034 | Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil] |
7039 | How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil] |
7009 | Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil] |
7041 | Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil] |
7032 | Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil] |
7008 | Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil] |
7018 | Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
7019 | Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil] |
7046 | Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil] |
14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
7047 | Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil] |
7048 | Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil] |
14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
13702 | The identity of indiscernibles is necessarily true, if being a member of some set counts as a property [Sider] |
14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
13721 | 'Strong' necessity in all possible worlds; 'weak' necessity in the worlds where the relevant objects exist [Sider] |
13707 | Maybe metaphysical accessibility is intransitive, if a world in which I am a frog is impossible [Sider] |
13709 | Logical truths must be necessary if anything is [Sider] |
13716 | 'If B hadn't shot L someone else would have' if false; 'If B didn't shoot L, someone else did' is true [Sider] |
15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
13717 | Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual [Sider] |
14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
13719 | Barcan Formula problem: there might have been a ghost, despite nothing existing which could be a ghost [Sider] |
4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
7051 | Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil] |
7044 | Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil] |
7052 | Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil] |
7053 | Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil] |
9185 | Bolzano wanted to avoid Kantian intuitions, and prove everything that could be proved [Bolzano, by Dummett] |
7066 | If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil] |
7021 | If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil] |
14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
7026 | Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil] |
14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
7061 | Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil] |
7063 | Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil] |
7064 | Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil] |
4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
7027 | Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil] |
4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
7062 | Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil] |
4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
7059 | The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil] |
4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
7043 | Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil] |
4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
7058 | Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil] |
7057 | Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil] |
7013 | The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil] |
4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
22276 | Bolzano saw propositions as objective entities, existing independently of us [Bolzano, by Potter] |
17264 | Propositions are abstract structures of concepts, ready for judgement or assertion [Bolzano, by Correia/Schnieder] |
12232 | A 'proposition' is the sense of a linguistic expression, and can be true or false [Bolzano] |
4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
7002 | If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil] |
12233 | The ground of a pure conceptual truth is only in other conceptual truths [Bolzano] |
14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
7016 | The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil] |
14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
7036 | The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil] |