74 ideas
| 18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
| 18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
| 18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
| 18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
| 18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
| 18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
| 18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
| 18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
| 18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
| 18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
| 18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
| 18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
| 18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
| 18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
| 18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
| 18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
| 18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
| 18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
| 18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
| 18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
| 18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |