45 ideas
6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
6937 | Reason aims to discover the unknown by thinking about the known [Peirce] |
17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
21492 | Realism is basic to the scientific method [Peirce] |
16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
16695 | Successive entities are in flux, flowing in existence, with different parts at different times [Oresme] |
16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
6598 | We need our beliefs to be determined by some external inhuman permanency [Peirce] |
6944 | Demonstration does not rest on first principles of reason or sensation, but on freedom from actual doubt [Peirce] |
6948 | Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce] |
6945 | Once doubt ceases, there is no point in continuing to argue [Peirce] |
16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
6939 | What is true of one piece of copper is true of another (unlike brass) [Peirce] |
6938 | Natural selection might well fill an animal's mind with pleasing thoughts rather than true ones [Peirce] |
6946 | If death is annihilation, belief in heaven is a cheap pleasure with no disappointment [Peirce] |