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Ideas of Cynthia Macdonald, by Text

[New Zealand, b.1951, Professor at the University of Canterybury, New Zealand.]

2005 Varieties of Things
Ch.1 p.25 'Did it for the sake of x' doesn't involve a sake, so how can ontological commitments be inferred?
Ch.2 p.59 We 'individuate' kinds of object, and 'identify' particular specimens
Ch.2 p.63 At different times Leibniz articulated three different versions of his so-called Law
Ch.2 p.242 Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge?
Ch.2 n32 p.75 The Identity of Indiscernibles is false, because it is not necessarily true
Ch.3 p.81 A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence
Ch.3 p.82 The bundle theory of substance implies the identity of indiscernibles
Ch.3 p.84 A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view
Ch.3 p.89 Tropes are abstract (two can occupy the same place), but not universals (they have locations)
Ch.3 p.91 Unlike bundles of properties, substances have an intrinsic unity
Ch.3 p.95 When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology
Ch.3 p.101 Relational properties are clearly not essential to substances
Ch.3 p.102 Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't
Ch.3 p.104 A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle
Ch.3 p.111 Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular
Ch.3 p.112 The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change
Ch.3 p.113 A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible
Ch.3 n5 p.123 Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk
Ch.4 p.166 In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself
Ch.4 p.172 A statue and its matter have different persistence conditions, so they are not identical
Ch.5 p.85 Don't assume that a thing has all the properties of its parts
Ch.6 p.219 Numerical sameness is explained by theories of identity, but what explains qualitative identity?
Ch.6 p.219 Philosophy tries to explain how the actual is possible, given that it seems impossible
Ch.6 p.230 Resemblance Nominalism cannot explain either new resemblances, or absence of resemblances
Ch.6 p.234 Properties are sets of exactly resembling property-particulars
Ch.6 p.235 How do a group of resembling tropes all resemble one another in the same way?
Ch.6 p.236 Trope Nominalism is the only nominalism to introduce new entities, inviting Ockham's Razor
Ch.6 p.237 A 'thing' cannot be in two places at once, and two things cannot be in the same place at once
Ch.6 p.240 How can universals connect instances, if they are nothing like them?
Ch.6 p.249 Being taller is an external relation, but properties and substances have internal relations
Ch.6 n16 p.255 Real Nominalism is only committed to concrete particulars, word-tokens, and (possibly) sets
Ch.6 n16 p.255 Tropes are abstract particulars, not concrete particulars, so the theory is not nominalist