Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Metaphysics of Properties', 'Interview with Baggini and Stangroom' and 'Structuralism'

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41 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 8. Humour
Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley]
Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley]
Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley]
Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley]
Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley]
Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 7. Making Modal Truths
Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
Structuralism is now common, studying relations, with no regard for what the objects might be [Hellman]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / c. Nominalist structuralism
Maybe mathematical objects only have structural roles, and no intrinsic nature [Hellman]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver]
Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver]
If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver]
There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver]
The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver]
The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver]
Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals
'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 3. Instantiated Universals
Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver]
Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver]
If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver]
Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver]
Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / i. Conceptual priority
Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley]