59 ideas
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
10653 | Maybe set theory need not be well-founded [Varzi] |
10648 | Mereology need not be nominalist, though it is often taken to be so [Varzi] |
10655 | Are there mereological atoms, and are all objects made of them? [Varzi] |
10659 | There is something of which everything is part, but no null-thing which is part of everything [Varzi] |
10794 | The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10786 | Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10788 | Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10799 | Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10790 | Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10791 | Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10785 | Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10795 | Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10798 | A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10787 | Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
10789 | Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10796 | If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
10661 | 'Composition is identity' says multitudes are the reality, loosely composing single things [Varzi] |
10647 | Parts may or may not be attached, demarcated, arbitrary, material, extended, spatial or temporal [Varzi] |
10651 | If 'part' is reflexive, then identity is a limit case of parthood [Varzi] |
10649 | 'Part' stands for a reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive relation [Varzi] |
10654 | The parthood relation will help to define at least seven basic predicates [Varzi] |
10658 | Sameness of parts won't guarantee identity if their arrangement matters [Varzi] |
10797 | Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
10652 | Conceivability may indicate possibility, but literary fantasy does not [Varzi] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |