55 ideas
| 16241 | The metaphysics of nature should focus on physics [Maudlin] |
| 16257 | Kant survives in seeing metaphysics as analysing our conceptual system, which is a priori [Maudlin] |
| 16276 | Wide metaphysical possibility may reduce metaphysics to analysis of fantasies [Maudlin] |
| 6420 | Only by analysing is progress possible in philosophy [Russell] |
| 6432 | Analysis gives new knowledge, without destroying what we already have [Russell] |
| 16244 | If the universe is profligate, the Razor leads us astray [Maudlin] |
| 16255 | The Razor rightly prefers one cause of multiple events to coincidences of causes [Maudlin] |
| 6437 | The theory of types makes 'Socrates and killing are two' illegitimate [Russell] |
| 6442 | Truth belongs to beliefs, not to propositions and sentences [Russell] |
| 6436 | I gradually replaced classes with properties, and they ended as a symbolic convenience [Russell] |
| 10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
| 7528 | Leibniz bases everything on subject/predicate and substance/property propositions [Russell] |
| 6439 | Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell] |
| 6423 | We tried to define all of pure maths using logical premisses and concepts [Russell] |
| 6425 | Formalism can't apply numbers to reality, so it is an evasion [Russell] |
| 6424 | Formalists say maths is merely conventional marks on paper, like the arbitrary rules of chess [Russell] |
| 6426 | Intuitionism says propositions are only true or false if there is a method of showing it [Russell] |
| 16243 | The Humean view is wrong; laws and direction of time are primitive, and atoms are decided by physics [Maudlin] |
| 16271 | Lewis says it supervenes on the Mosaic, but actually thinks the Mosaic is all there is [Maudlin] |
| 16273 | If the Humean Mosaic is ontological bedrock, there can be no explanation of its structure [Maudlin] |
| 16275 | The 'spinning disc' is just impossible, because there cannot be 'homogeneous matter' [Maudlin] |
| 6419 | In 1899-1900 I adopted the philosophy of logical atomism [Russell] |
| 6438 | Complex things can be known, but not simple things [Russell] |
| 6434 | Facts are everything, except simples; they are either relations or qualities [Russell] |
| 16258 | To get an ontology from ontological commitment, just add that some theory is actually true [Maudlin] |
| 16259 | Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology [Maudlin] |
| 16253 | A property is fundamental if two objects can differ in only that respect [Maudlin] |
| 16263 | Fundamental physics seems to suggest there are no such things as properties [Maudlin] |
| 16260 | Existence of universals may just be decided by acceptance, or not, of second-order logic [Maudlin] |
| 6440 | Universals can't just be words, because words themselves are universals [Russell] |
| 16277 | Logically impossible is metaphysically impossible, but logically possible is not metaphysically possible [Maudlin] |
| 16249 | A counterfactual antecedent commands the redescription of a selected moment [Maudlin] |
| 6430 | In epistemology we should emphasis the continuity between animal and human minds [Russell] |
| 6441 | Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell] |
| 6431 | Empiricists seem unclear what they mean by 'experience' [Russell] |
| 6444 | True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell] |
| 16254 | Induction leaps into the unknown, but usually lands safely [Maudlin] |
| 16245 | Laws should help explain the things they govern, or that manifest them [Maudlin] |
| 6433 | Behaviourists struggle to explain memory and imagination, because they won't admit images [Russell] |
| 6443 | Surprise is a criterion of error [Russell] |
| 6427 | Unverifiable propositions about the remote past are still either true or false [Russell] |
| 6435 | You can believe the meaning of a sentence without thinking of the words [Russell] |
| 16248 | Evaluating counterfactuals involves context and interests [Maudlin] |
| 16250 | We don't pick a similar world from many - we construct one possibility from the description [Maudlin] |
| 16268 | The counterfactual is ruined if some other cause steps in when the antecedent fails [Maudlin] |
| 16267 | If we know the cause of an event, we seem to assent to the counterfactual [Maudlin] |
| 16269 | If the effect hadn't occurred the cause wouldn't have happened, so counterfactuals are two-way [Maudlin] |
| 16242 | Laws of nature are ontological bedrock, and beyond analysis [Maudlin] |
| 16247 | Laws are primitive, so two indiscernible worlds could have the same laws [Maudlin] |
| 16272 | Fundamental laws say how nature will, or might, evolve from some initial state [Maudlin] |
| 16251 | 'Humans with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law, because not a natural kind [Maudlin] |
| 16270 | If laws are just regularities, then there have to be laws [Maudlin] |
| 16264 | I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin] |
| 16265 | If time passes, presumably it passes at one second per second [Maudlin] |
| 16266 | There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin] |