80 ideas
| 8558 | One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker] |
| 13567 | Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis] |
| 8559 | Analysis aims at internal relationships, not reduction [Shoemaker] |
| 13604 | Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis] |
| 13606 | Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis] |
| 13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13584 | The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis] |
| 15092 | Formerly I said properties are individuated by essential causal powers and causing instantiation [Shoemaker, by Shoemaker] |
| 8543 | Genuine properties are closely related to genuine changes [Shoemaker] |
| 8551 | Properties must be essentially causal if we can know and speak about them [Shoemaker] |
| 8557 | To ascertain genuine properties, examine the object directly [Shoemaker] |
| 13587 | There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis] |
| 13577 | Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis] |
| 9436 | The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis] |
| 13582 | 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis] |
| 15761 | We should abandon the idea that properties are the meanings of predicate expressions [Shoemaker] |
| 15756 | Some truths are not because of a thing's properties, but because of the properties of related things [Shoemaker] |
| 13580 | Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis] |
| 13598 | Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis] |
| 13568 | Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis] |
| 13586 | Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis] |
| 15758 | Things have powers in virtue of (which are entailed by) their properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8547 | One power can come from different properties; a thing's powers come from its properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8549 | Properties are functions producing powers, and powers are functions producing effects [Shoemaker] |
| 12678 | Shoemaker says all genuine properties are dispositional [Shoemaker, by Ellis] |
| 8545 | A causal theory of properties focuses on change, not (say) on abstract properties of numbers [Shoemaker] |
| 15757 | 'Square', 'round' and 'made of copper' show that not all properties are dispositional [Shoemaker] |
| 15759 | The identity of a property concerns its causal powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15760 | Properties are clusters of conditional powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15762 | Could properties change without the powers changing, or powers change without the properties changing? [Shoemaker] |
| 8552 | If properties are separated from causal powers, this invites total elimination [Shoemaker] |
| 4040 | The notions of property and of causal power are parts of a single system of related concepts [Shoemaker] |
| 15765 | Actually, properties are individuated by causes as well as effects [Shoemaker] |
| 13585 | The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis] |
| 13596 | A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis] |
| 13599 | Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis] |
| 8548 | Dispositional predicates ascribe powers, and the rest ascribe properties [Shoemaker] |
| 13572 | There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis] |
| 13573 | Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis] |
| 9485 | Universals concern how things are, and how they could be [Shoemaker, by Bird] |
| 8550 | Triangular and trilateral are coextensive, but different concepts; but powers and properties are the same [Shoemaker] |
| 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] |
| 13571 | Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis] |
| 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] |
| 13578 | The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis] |
| 8555 | There is no subset of properties which guarantee a thing's identity [Shoemaker] |
| 13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13576 | Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis] |
| 8554 | Possible difference across worlds depends on difference across time in the actual world [Shoemaker] |
| 13570 | Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis] |
| 15764 | 'Conceivable' is either not-provably-false, or compatible with what we know? [Shoemaker] |
| 8562 | It is possible to conceive what is not possible [Shoemaker] |
| 13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13607 | If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis] |
| 8556 | Grueness is not, unlike green and blue, associated with causal potential [Shoemaker] |
| 13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 13597 | Good explanations unify [Ellis] |
| 13601 | Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis] |
| 13569 | To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
| 13583 | There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis] |
| 13574 | Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis] |
| 13575 | If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis] |
| 8542 | If causality is between events, there must be reference to the properties involved [Shoemaker] |
| 13595 | Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis] |
| 13566 | A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis] |
| 13579 | What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 13581 | Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis] |
| 13594 | The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis] |
| 13603 | A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 8560 | If causal laws describe causal potentialities, the same laws govern properties in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 15763 | If properties are causal, then causal necessity is a species of logical necessity [Shoemaker] |
| 8561 | If a world has different causal laws, it must have different properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8553 | It looks as if the immutability of the powers of a property imply essentiality [Shoemaker] |