69 ideas
| 14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
| 15801 | Many philosophers aim to understand metaphysics by studying ourselves [Chisholm] |
| 15802 | I use variables to show that each item remains the same entity throughout [Chisholm] |
| 14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
| 15832 | Events are states of affairs that occur at certain places and times [Chisholm] |
| 5953 | For the Cyrenaics experience was not enough to give certainty about reality [Aristippus young, by Plutarch] |
| 15809 | A state of affairs pertains to a thing if it implies that it has some property [Chisholm] |
| 15829 | The mark of a state of affairs is that it is capable of being accepted [Chisholm] |
| 15828 | I propose that events and propositions are two types of states of affairs [Chisholm] |
| 15830 | Some properties can never be had, like being a round square [Chisholm] |
| 15827 | Some properties, such as 'being a widow', can be seen as 'rooted outside the time they are had' [Chisholm] |
| 14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
| 15804 | If some dogs are brown, that entails the properties of 'being brown' and 'being canine' [Chisholm] |
| 15810 | Maybe we can only individuate things by relating them to ourselves [Chisholm] |
| 15805 | Being the tallest man is an 'individual concept', but not a haecceity [Chisholm] |
| 15807 | A haecceity is a property had necessarily, and strictly confined to one entity [Chisholm] |
| 14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| 14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| 14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
| 15814 | A peach is sweet and fuzzy, but it doesn't 'have' those qualities [Chisholm] |
| 12852 | If x is ever part of y, then y is necessarily such that x is part of y at any time that y exists [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 15808 | A traditional individual essence includes all of a thing's necessary characteristics [Chisholm] |
| 14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
| 14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
| 14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
| 14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
| 14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
| 14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
| 14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
| 14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
| 14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
| 14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
| 12851 | Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
| 15806 | The property of being identical with me is an individual concept [Chisholm] |
| 14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
| 15826 | There is 'loose' identity between things if their properties, or truths about them, might differ [Chisholm] |
| 14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
| 15819 | Do sense-data have structure, location, weight, and constituting matter? [Chisholm] |
| 15816 | 'I feel depressed' is more like 'he runs slowly' than like 'he has a red book' [Chisholm] |
| 15817 | If we can say a man senses 'redly', why not also 'rectangularly'? [Chisholm] |
| 15818 | So called 'sense-data' are best seen as 'modifications' of the person experiencing them [Chisholm] |
| 15831 | Explanations have states of affairs as their objects [Chisholm] |
| 15811 | I am picked out uniquely by my individual essence, which is 'being identical with myself' [Chisholm] |
| 15815 | Sartre says the ego is 'opaque'; I prefer to say that it is 'transparent' [Chisholm] |
| 15813 | People use 'I' to refer to themselves, with the meaning of their own individual essence [Chisholm] |
| 15803 | Bad theories of the self see it as abstract, or as a bundle, or as a process [Chisholm] |
| 15821 | Determinism claims that every event has a sufficient causal pre-condition [Chisholm] |
| 3023 | Even the foolish may have some virtues [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 15824 | There are mere omissions (through ignorance, perhaps), and people can 'commit an omission' [Chisholm] |
| 3026 | Actions are influenced by circumstances, so Cyrenaics say felons should be reformed, not hated [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3024 | Cyrenaics teach that honour, justice and shame are all based on custom and fashion [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3025 | For a Cyrenaic no one is of equal importance to himself [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3019 | No one pleasure is different from or more pleasant than another [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3021 | The Cyrenaics asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3027 | Cyrenaics say wise men are self-sufficient, needing no friends [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 15822 | The concept of physical necessity is basic to both causation, and to the concept of nature [Chisholm] |
| 15823 | Some propose a distinct 'agent causation', as well as 'event causation' [Chisholm] |
| 15820 | A 'law of nature' is just something which is physically necessary [Chisholm] |
| 14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| 14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
| 14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
| 14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |