46 ideas
| 4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
| 12797 | If plural variables have 'some values', then non-count variables have 'some value' [Laycock] |
| 12794 | Plurals are semantical but not ontological [Laycock] |
| 17694 | Some non-count nouns can be used for counting, as in 'several wines' or 'fewer cheeses' [Laycock] |
| 17695 | Some apparent non-count words can take plural forms, such as 'snows' or 'waters' [Laycock] |
| 12792 | The category of stuff does not suit reference [Laycock] |
| 12799 | Descriptions of stuff are neither singular aggregates nor plural collections [Laycock] |
| 12818 | We shouldn't think some water retains its identity when it is mixed with air [Laycock] |
| 4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
| 13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
| 4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
| 4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
| 4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
| 4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
| 4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
| 4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
| 4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
| 4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
| 4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
| 4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
| 4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
| 4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
| 4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
| 4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
| 4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
| 4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
| 4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
| 13102 | If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13103 | Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13104 | Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13100 | Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13068 | We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13069 | The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 12795 | Parts must be of the same very general type as the wholes [Laycock] |
| 13072 | Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 17080 | Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
| 13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
| 17696 | 'Humility is a virtue' has an abstract noun, but 'water is a liquid' has a generic concrete noun [Laycock] |
| 4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
| 12791 | It is said that proper reference is our intellectual link with the world [Laycock] |
| 4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |