Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Nature of Necessity', 'On Multiplying Entities' and 'Events'

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14 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Some events involve no change; they must, because causal histories involve unchanges [Lewis]
The events that suit semantics may not be the events that suit causation [Lewis]
Events have inbuilt essences, as necessary conditions for their occurrence [Lewis]
Events are classes, and so there is a mereology of their parts [Lewis]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
An event is a property of a unique space-time region [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
Properties are very abundant (unlike universals), and are used for semantics and higher-order variables [Lewis]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation
Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Causation is a general relation derived from instances of causal dependence [Lewis]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]