Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Essence and Potentiality', 'Finkish dispositions' and 'How the Laws of Physics Lie'

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29 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
16185 Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
15464 The distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties leads to confusion [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
15463 All dispositions must have causal bases [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
17954 Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional
15461 A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
17953 Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
17952 Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
17959 Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
17955 Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter]
17957 Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
15462 Backtracking counterfactuals go from supposed events to their required causal antecedents [Lewis]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / c. Possible but inconceivable
17958 The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
17956 Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
16182 Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
16184 An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16167 Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N]
16169 Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N]
16176 Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N]
16177 I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N]
16180 You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N]
16171 The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
16183 In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
16175 A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
6781 There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird]
16166 Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
16179 Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16170 To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N]
16181 Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N]
16178 There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N]