107 ideas
| 6405 | Moore's 'The Nature of Judgement' (1898) marked the rejection (with Russell) of idealism [Moore,GE, by Grayling] |
| 17992 | The main aim of philosophy is to describe the whole Universe. [Moore,GE] |
| 7527 | Analysis for Moore and Russell is carving up the world, not investigating language [Moore,GE, by Monk] |
| 11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| 11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| 14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| 21342 | A relation is internal if two things possessing the relation could not fail to be related [Moore,GE, by Heil] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| 11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
| 11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| 11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
| 13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
| 10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
| 14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
| 11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
| 11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
| 11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| 11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
| 11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| 11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| 11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| 11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
| 11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
| 11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| 11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
| 11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| 11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
| 11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| 11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
| 6672 | Moore's Paradox: you can't assert 'I believe that p but p is false', but can assert 'You believe p but p is false' [Moore,GE, by Lowe] |
| 20147 | Arguments that my finger does not exist are less certain than your seeing my finger [Moore,GE] |
| 6349 | I can prove a hand exists, by holding one up, pointing to it, and saying 'here is one hand' [Moore,GE] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| 11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
| 22302 | Moor bypassed problems of correspondence by saying true propositions ARE facts [Moore,GE, by Potter] |
| 7526 | Hegelians say propositions defy analysis, but Moore says they can be broken down [Moore,GE, by Monk] |
| 21233 | The beautiful is whatever it is intrinsically good to admire [Moore,GE] |
| 8039 | Moore tries to show that 'good' is indefinable, but doesn't understand what a definition is [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 11056 | The naturalistic fallacy claims that natural qualties can define 'good' [Moore,GE] |
| 22151 | The Open Question argument leads to anti-realism and the fact-value distinction [Boulter on Moore,GE] |
| 8033 | Moore cannot show why something being good gives us a reason for action [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 8032 | Can learning to recognise a good friend help us to recognise a good watch? [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 11050 | Moore's combination of antinaturalism with strong supervenience on the natural is incoherent [Hanna on Moore,GE] |
| 23726 | Despite Moore's caution, non-naturalists incline towards intuitionism [Moore,GE, by Smith,M] |
| 18676 | We should ask what we would judge to be good if it existed in absolute isolation [Moore,GE] |
| 11057 | It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE] |
| 5925 | The three main values are good, right and beauty [Moore,GE, by Ross] |
| 5902 | For Moore, 'right' is what produces good [Moore,GE, by Ross] |
| 5903 | 'Right' means 'cause of good result' (hence 'useful'), so the end does justify the means [Moore,GE] |
| 5907 | Relationships imply duties to people, not merely the obligation to benefit them [Ross on Moore,GE] |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| 7482 | Resurrection developed in Judaism as a response to martyrdoms, in about 160 BCE [Anon (Dan), by Watson] |