30 ideas
10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |