68 ideas
23183 | Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche] |
13567 | Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis] |
23188 | Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche] |
23212 | A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche] |
23199 | What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche] |
23202 | Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche] |
13604 | Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis] |
23196 | Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche] |
13606 | Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis] |
23186 | Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche] |
23211 | Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche] |
13584 | The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis] |
13587 | There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis] |
13577 | Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis] |
9436 | The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis] |
13582 | 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis] |
13580 | Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis] |
13598 | Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis] |
13568 | Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis] |
13586 | Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis] |
13585 | The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis] |
13596 | A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis] |
13599 | Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis] |
13572 | There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis] |
13573 | Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis] |
13571 | Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis] |
13578 | The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis] |
13576 | Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis] |
13570 | Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis] |
23207 | Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche] |
23197 | Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche] |
23206 | Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche] |
23209 | Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche] |
13607 | If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis] |
13597 | Good explanations unify [Ellis] |
13601 | Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis] |
13569 | To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis] |
23184 | The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
23190 | Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche] |
23191 | Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche] |
13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
23213 | The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche] |
23210 | That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche] |
23189 | Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche] |
23192 | Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche] |
23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
23205 | Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche] |
23198 | Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche] |
23208 | Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche] |
23193 | Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche] |
23214 | For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche] |
23203 | The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche] |
23200 | The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche] |
23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
23204 | To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
13583 | There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis] |
13574 | Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis] |
13575 | If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis] |
13595 | Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis] |
13566 | A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis] |
13579 | What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis] |
13581 | Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis] |
13594 | The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis] |
13603 | A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
23195 | Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche] |
23185 | In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |