Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Properties' and 'Against the Physicists (two books)'

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39 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
4036 What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
15754 Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
4034 Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong]
8535 To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
8537 Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
8538 Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
8539 Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta
8529 Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
8532 Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
8530 Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong]
8536 We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
8531 In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
22744 Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
15753 Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
22748 Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
22746 If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
22741 The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
8533 Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong]
4035 There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
8541 Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong]
8540 The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
22747 A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
22749 Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
22750 Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
22742 Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
22751 If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
22730 All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
22739 God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
22738 The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
22734 God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
22740 God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
22735 The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
22732 The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
22728 Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
22737 An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
22731 It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]