28 ideas
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |