70 ideas
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
10308 | Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale] |
10314 | An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase [Hale] |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
10316 | We should decide whether singular terms are genuine by their usage [Hale] |
10312 | Often the same singular term does not ensure reliable inference [Hale] |
10313 | Plenty of clear examples have singular terms with no ontological commitment [Hale] |
10322 | If singular terms can't be language-neutral, then we face a relativity about their objects [Hale] |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
10512 | The abstract/concrete distinction is based on what is perceivable, causal and located [Hale] |
10517 | Colours and points seem to be both concrete and abstract [Hale] |
10519 | The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names [Hale] |
10520 | Token-letters and token-words are concrete objects, type-letters and type-words abstract [Hale] |
10524 | There is a hierarchy of abstraction, based on steps taken by equivalence relations [Hale] |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
10521 | If F can't have location, there is no problem of things having F in different locations [Hale] |
10511 | It is doubtful if one entity, a universal, can be picked out by both predicates and abstract nouns [Hale] |
10318 | Realists take universals to be the referrents of both adjectives and of nouns [Hale] |
10310 | Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated [Hale] |
10518 | Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not [Hale] |
10513 | Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal [Hale] |
10514 | If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract [Hale] |
10523 | Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated [Hale] |
10307 | The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage [Hale] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
10315 | We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?' [Hale] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
10522 | The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations [Hale] |
10321 | We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |