Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Scientific Thought', 'Essence, Necessity and Explanation' and 'works'

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15 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
A successful Aristotelian 'definition' is what sciences produces after an investigation [Koslicki]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 6. Definition by Essence
Essences cause necessary features, and definitions describe those necessary features [Koslicki]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
An essence and what merely follow from it are distinct [Koslicki]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
Individuals are perceived, but demonstration and definition require universals [Koslicki]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / c. Essentials are necessary
If an object exists, then its essential properties are necessary [Koslicki]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad]
If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 2. Demonstration
In demonstration, the explanatory order must mirror the causal order of the phenomena [Koslicki]
In a demonstration the middle term explains, by being part of the definition [Koslicki]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Greek uses the same word for 'cause' and 'explanation' [Koslicki]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
Discovering the Aristotelian essence of thunder will tell us why thunder occurs [Koslicki]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 9. Counterfactual Claims
An event causes another just if the second event would not have happened without the first [Lewis, by Psillos]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett]
We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad]