39 ideas
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
14018 | Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
14008 | The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
14010 | All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne] |
14009 | It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
14016 | The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne] |
14019 | Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne] |
14013 | Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne] |
14015 | No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne] |
14007 | How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne] |
14011 | Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne] |
14017 | Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne] |
14003 | Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne] |
14005 | B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne] |
14006 | Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne] |