61 ideas
16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
17729 | Examining concepts can recover information obtained through the senses [Jenkins] |
5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |
16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
17730 | Combining the concepts of negation and finiteness gives the concept of infinity [Jenkins] |
17719 | Arithmetic concepts are indispensable because they accurately map the world [Jenkins] |
17717 | Senses produce concepts that map the world, and arithmetic is known through these concepts [Jenkins] |
17724 | It is not easy to show that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense [Jenkins] |
17727 | We can learn about the world by studying the grounding of our concepts [Jenkins] |
17720 | There's essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive dependence [Jenkins, by PG] |
17728 | The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins] |
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] |
17726 | Examining accurate, justified or grounded concepts brings understanding of the world [Jenkins] |
5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
17734 | It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins] |
17723 | Knowledge is true belief which can be explained just by citing the proposition believed [Jenkins] |
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] |
17739 | The physical effect of world on brain explains the concepts we possess [Jenkins] |
17718 | Grounded concepts are trustworthy maps of the world [Jenkins] |
17731 | Verificationism is better if it says meaningfulness needs concepts grounded in the senses [Jenkins] |
17732 | Success semantics explains representation in terms of success in action [Jenkins] |
5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
17725 | 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins] |
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] |
5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [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] |
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] |
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] |
5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |