21 ideas
20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
8502 | Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt] |
8503 | The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt] |
8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
17368 | Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt] |
17370 | Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt] |
9354 | Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt] |
19565 | How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt] |
9353 | We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt] |
9356 | The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt] |
19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
4741 | A very powerful computer might have its operations restricted by the addition of consciousness [Clark,T] |
20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
17371 | Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt] |
20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |