123 ideas
| 21970 | Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte] |
| 6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| 6912 | For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason' [Fichte, by Feuerbach] |
| 23247 | The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason [Fichte] |
| 23232 | Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general [Fichte] |
| 19215 | Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks] |
| 14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
| 14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
| 14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
| 14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
| 14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
| 14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
| 14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
| 14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
| 14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
| 14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
| 14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
| 14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
| 14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
| 14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
| 19205 | 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks] |
| 14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
| 19209 | Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks] |
| 19208 | The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks] |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 19207 | Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks] |
| 14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
| 6143 | Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks] |
| 6135 | A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks] |
| 23227 | Each object has a precise number of properties, each to a precise degree [Fichte] |
| 14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
| 6145 | Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks] |
| 23228 | The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte] |
| 14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
| 6124 | I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks] |
| 6134 | Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks] |
| 14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
| 6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
| 14229 | Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins] |
| 6142 | The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks] |
| 14472 | If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson] |
| 14469 | Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks] |
| 6137 | Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks] |
| 6127 | 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks] |
| 6131 | Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks] |
| 6132 | Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks] |
| 6141 | There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks] |
| 6130 | 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks] |
| 6138 | It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks] |
| 6128 | Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks] |
| 14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
| 19214 | In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks] |
| 6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
| 14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
| 14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
| 22062 | Mental presentation are not empirical, but concern the strivings of the self [Fichte] |
| 22015 | The thing-in-itself is an empty dream [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 21973 | Fichte believed in things-in-themselves [Fichte, by Moore,AW] |
| 21914 | We can deduce experience from self-consciousness, without the thing-in-itself [Fichte] |
| 23241 | I am myself, but not the external object; so I only sense myself, and not the object [Fichte] |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 20951 | The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I [Fichte, by Bowie] |
| 21964 | Reason arises from freedom, so philosophy starts from the self, and not from the laws of nature [Fichte] |
| 21968 | Abandon the thing-in-itself; things only exist in relation to our thinking [Fichte] |
| 21966 | Self-consciousness is the basis of knowledge, and knowing something is knowing myself [Fichte] |
| 21967 | There is nothing to say about anything which is outside my consciousness [Fichte] |
| 21969 | Awareness of reality comes from the free activity of consciousness [Fichte] |
| 23231 | I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference [Fichte] |
| 23246 | Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte] |
| 6150 | The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks] |
| 23245 | Knowledge can't be its own foundation; there has to be regress of higher and higher authorities [Fichte] |
| 23242 | Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte] |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| 23240 | We can't know by sight or hearing without realising that we are doing so [Fichte] |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 23243 | Consciousness of external things is always accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of self [Fichte] |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| 6144 | You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks] |
| 6140 | Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks] |
| 22063 | Effective individuals must posit a specific material body for themselves [Fichte] |
| 23244 | Forming purposes is absolutely free, and produces something from nothing [Fichte] |
| 23237 | The capacity for freedom is above the laws of nature, with its own power of purpose and will [Fichte] |
| 23235 | I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte] |
| 21965 | Spinoza could not actually believe his determinism, because living requires free will [Fichte] |
| 6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |
| 23230 | Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte] |
| 6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
| 6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |
| 19217 | I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks] |
| 19203 | A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks] |
| 19200 | Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks] |
| 19206 | 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks] |
| 19202 | Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks] |
| 19204 | True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks] |
| 19210 | The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks] |
| 19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
| 19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
| 19212 | Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks] |
| 19213 | We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks] |
| 23233 | The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces [Fichte] |
| 23234 | I cannot change the nature which has been determined for me [Fichte] |
| 23239 | The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature [Fichte] |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 23238 | If life lacks love it becomes destruction [Fichte] |
| 5845 | Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon] |
| 23236 | Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature [Fichte] |
| 5833 | Education is the greatest of human goods [Xenophon] |
| 23229 | Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything [Fichte] |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 17960 | Eternalism says all times are equally real, and future and past objects and properties are real [Merricks] |
| 17961 | Growing block has a subjective present and a growing edge - but these could come apart [Merricks, by PG] |
| 14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
| 14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
| 14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
| 14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |