39 ideas
| 12667 | Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis] |
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| 10397 | Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 12666 | We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis] |
| 12688 | Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis] |
| 12683 | Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12670 | A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis] |
| 15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
| 12673 | Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis] |
| 15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
| 9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
| 12665 | I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis] |
| 12682 | Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis] |
| 12684 | Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis] |
| 12672 | Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis] |
| 12676 | Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis] |
| 23781 | Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE] |
| 12686 | Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis] |
| 15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
| 10396 | If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 10395 | Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 15384 | Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| 8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
| 12685 | Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis] |
| 12679 | A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis] |
| 8481 | The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein] |
| 12668 | Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis] |
| 12687 | Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis] |
| 12669 | Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis] |
| 15385 | Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard] |
| 15383 | Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| 12681 | There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12680 | Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis] |
| 10398 | Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 12675 | Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis] |
| 12671 | I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis] |
| 12674 | Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis] |
| 12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 12690 | The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis] |