66 ideas
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 15105 | F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said.. [Sommers,W] |
| 12408 | Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please... [Sommers,W] |
| 12397 | Said Plato: 'The things that we feel... [Sommers,W] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 12407 | Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink?... [Sommers,W] |
| 12399 | There was a young student called Fred... [Sommers,W] |
| 20963 | A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive... [Sommers,W] |
| 12404 | Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W] |
| 12403 | There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W] |
| 12402 | ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W] |
| 12409 | The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W] |
| 14694 | "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? ..... [Sommers,W] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 12401 | A toper who spies in the distance... [Sommers,W] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 12410 | There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W] |
| 9392 | How do behaviourists greet each other? [Sommers,W] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 12405 | 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche... [Sommers,W] |
| 9391 | Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? [Sommers,W] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 6613 | The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 16527 | Causation - we all thought we knew it/ Till Hume came along and saw through it/…. [Sommers,W] |
| 12400 | Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'... [Sommers,W] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 6615 | A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 6614 | A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 6612 | Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis] |
| 17592 | The barman called 'Time!', and Augustine said..... [Sommers,W] |
| 15208 | The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W] |