109 ideas
| 7910 | Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha] |
| 4194 | Metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality as a whole [Lowe] |
| 4214 | Maybe such concepts as causation, identity and existence are primitive and irreducible [Lowe] |
| 4222 | If all that exists is what is being measured, what about the people and instruments doing the measuring? [Lowe] |
| 4217 | It is more extravagant, in general, to revise one's logic than to augment one's ontology [Lowe] |
| 3508 | Correspondence to the facts HAS to be the aim of enquiry [Searle] |
| 4229 | An infinite series of tasks can't be completed because it has no last member [Lowe] |
| 4240 | It might be argued that mathematics does not, or should not, aim at truth [Lowe] |
| 4241 | If there are infinite numbers and finite concrete objects, this implies that numbers are abstract objects [Lowe] |
| 4239 | Nominalists deny abstract objects, because we can have no reason to believe in their existence [Lowe] |
| 4202 | Change can be of composition (the component parts), or quality (properties), or substance [Lowe] |
| 4201 | Four theories of qualitative change are 'a is F now', or 'a is F-at-t', or 'a-at-t is F', or 'a is-at-t F' [Lowe, by PG] |
| 4219 | Numerically distinct events of the same kind (like two battles) can coincide in space and time [Lowe] |
| 4221 | Maybe modern physics requires an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology [Lowe] |
| 4225 | Events are changes in the properties of or relations between things [Lowe] |
| 4220 | Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time [Lowe] |
| 3473 | Reduction can be of things, properties, ideas or causes [Searle] |
| 3532 | Solidity in a piston is integral to its structure, not supervenient [Maslin on Searle] |
| 3533 | Is supervenience just causality? [Searle, by Maslin] |
| 3454 | Reality is entirely particles in force fields [Searle] |
| 4196 | The main categories of existence are either universal and particular, or abstract and concrete [Lowe] |
| 3471 | Some properties depend on components, others on their relations [Searle] |
| 3472 | Fully 'emergent' properties contradict our whole theory of causation [Searle] |
| 4234 | Trope theory says blueness is a real feature of objects, but not the same as an identical blue found elsewhere [Lowe] |
| 4235 | Maybe a cushion is just a bundle of tropes, such as roundness, blueness and softness [Lowe] |
| 4236 | Tropes seem to be abstract entities, because they can't exist alone, but must come in bundles [Lowe] |
| 4197 | The category of universals can be sub-divided into properties and relations [Lowe] |
| 4232 | Nominalists believe that only particulars exist [Lowe] |
| 4205 | 'Is non-self-exemplifying' is a predicate which cannot denote a property (as it would be a contradiction) [Lowe] |
| 4233 | If 'blueness' is a set of particulars, there is danger of circularity, or using universals, in identifying the set [Lowe] |
| 4206 | Conventionalists see the world as an amorphous lump without identities, but are we part of the lump? [Lowe] |
| 4204 | Statues can't survive much change to their shape, unlike lumps of bronze, which must retain material [Lowe] |
| 4200 | If old parts are stored and then appropriated, they are no longer part of the original (which is the renovated ship). [Lowe] |
| 4198 | If 5% replacement preserves a ship, we can replace 4% and 4% again, and still retain the ship [Lowe] |
| 4199 | A renovation or a reconstruction of an original ship would be accepted, as long as the other one didn't exist [Lowe] |
| 4203 | Identity of Indiscernibles (same properties, same thing) ) is not Leibniz's Law (same thing, same properties) [Lowe] |
| 4195 | It is impossible to reach a valid false conclusion from true premises, so reason itself depends on possibility [Lowe] |
| 4207 | We might eliminate 'possible' and 'necessary' in favour of quantification over possible worlds [Lowe] |
| 3490 | Beliefs only make sense as part of a network of other beliefs [Searle] |
| 3491 | Beliefs are part of a network, and also exist against a background [Searle] |
| 3482 | Perception is a function of expectation [Searle] |
| 3493 | Memory is mainly a guide for current performance [Searle] |
| 4223 | Unfalsifiability may be a failure in an empirical theory, but it is a virtue in metaphysics [Lowe] |
| 4193 | The behaviour of persons and social groups seems to need rational rather than causal explanation [Lowe] |
| 3463 | We don't have a "theory" that other people have minds [Searle] |
| 3457 | Other minds are not inferred by analogy, but are our best explanation [Searle] |
| 3480 | We experience unity at an instant and across time [Searle] |
| 3479 | The mind experiences space, but it is not experienced as spatial [Searle] |
| 3470 | Conscious creatures seem able to discriminate better [Searle] |
| 3486 | Unconscious thoughts are those capable of causing conscious ones [Searle] |
| 3503 | Consciousness results directly from brain processes, not from some intermediary like information [Searle] |
| 3465 | Either there is intrinsic intentionality, or everything has it [Searle] |
| 3484 | Water flowing downhill can be described as if it had intentionality [Searle] |
| 3489 | Intentional phenomena only make sense within a background [Searle] |
| 3494 | Intentionality is defined in terms of representation [Searle] |
| 3481 | Consciousness is essential and basic to intentionality [Searle] |
| 4088 | Pain is not intentional, because it does not represent anything beyond itself [Searle] |
| 3467 | Neither introspection nor privileged access makes sense [Searle] |
| 3483 | Introspection is just thinking about mental states, not a special sort of vision [Searle] |
| 3468 | I cannot observe my own subjectivity [Searle] |
| 3469 | Mind and brain don't interact if they are the same [Searle] |
| 3487 | Without internal content, a zombie's full behaviour couldn't be explained [Searle] |
| 3458 | Mental states only relate to behaviour contingently, not necessarily [Searle] |
| 3485 | Wanting H2O only differs from wanting water in its mental component [Searle] |
| 3461 | Functionalists like the externalist causal theory of reference [Searle] |
| 3496 | A program for Chinese translation doesn't need to understand Chinese [Searle] |
| 3501 | If we are computers, who is the user? [Searle] |
| 3499 | Computation presupposes consciousness [Searle] |
| 3455 | Property dualists tend to find the mind-body problem baffling [Searle] |
| 3456 | Consciousness is a brain property as liquidity is a water property [Searle] |
| 3475 | Property dualism denies reductionism [Searle] |
| 3453 | Property dualism is the reappearance of Cartesianism [Searle] |
| 3476 | Mind and brain are supervenient in respect of cause and effect [Searle] |
| 3477 | If mind-brain supervenience isn't causal, this implies epiphenomenalism [Searle] |
| 3478 | Upwards mental causation makes 'supervenience' irrelevant [Searle] |
| 3531 | Mental events can cause even though supervenient, like the solidity of a piston [Searle] |
| 3466 | Consciousness seems indefinable by conditions or categories [Searle] |
| 3500 | Can the homunculus fallacy be beaten by recursive decomposition? [Searle] |
| 9317 | Searle argues that biology explains consciousness, but physics won't explain biology [Searle, by Kriegel/Williford] |
| 3474 | If mind is caused by brain, does this mean mind IS brain? [Searle] |
| 3497 | If mind is multiply realisable, it is possible that anything could realise it [Searle] |
| 3462 | We don't postulate folk psychology, we experience it [Searle] |
| 3498 | Computation isn't a natural phenomenon, it is a way of seeing phenomena [Searle] |
| 3492 | Content is much more than just sentence meaning [Searle] |
| 3464 | There is no such thing as 'wide content' [Searle] |
| 3506 | We explain behaviour in terms of actual internal representations in the agent [Searle] |
| 4238 | The centre of mass of the solar system is a non-causal abstract object, despite having a location [Lowe] |
| 4237 | Concrete and abstract objects are distinct because the former have causal powers and relations [Lowe] |
| 3451 | Meaning is derived intentionality [Searle] |
| 3450 | Philosophy of language is a branch of philosophy of mind [Searle] |
| 3507 | Universal grammar doesn't help us explain anything [Searle] |
| 3495 | Shared Background makes translation possible, though variation makes it hard [Searle] |
| 3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |
| 3504 | Chemistry entirely explains plant behaviour [Searle] |
| 4210 | If the concept of a cause says it precedes its effect, that rules out backward causation by definition [Lowe] |
| 4215 | It seems proper to say that only substances (rather than events) have causal powers [Lowe] |
| 4209 | The theories of fact causation and event causation are both worth serious consideration [Lowe] |
| 4211 | Causal overdetermination is either actual overdetermination, or pre-emption, or the fail-safe case [Lowe] |
| 4213 | Causation may be instances of laws (seen either as constant conjunctions, or as necessities) [Lowe] |
| 4212 | Hume showed that causation could at most be natural necessity, never metaphysical necessity [Lowe] |
| 14581 | The normative view says laws show the natural behaviour of natural kind members [Lowe, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 4208 | 'If he wasn't born he wouldn't have died' doesn't mean birth causes death, so causation isn't counterfactual [Lowe] |
| 4224 | If motion is change of distance between objects, it involves no intrinsic change in the objects [Lowe] |
| 4227 | Surfaces, lines and points are not, strictly speaking, parts of space, but 'limits', which are abstract [Lowe] |
| 4228 | If space is entirely relational, what makes a boundary, or a place unoccupied by physical objects? [Lowe] |
| 3502 | Mind involves fighting, fleeing, feeding and fornicating [Searle] |
| 3459 | You can only know the limits of knowledge if you know the other side of the limit [Searle] |
| 7909 | The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha] |
| 7908 | At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha] |