35 ideas
| 14018 | Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne] |
| 16539 | A definition of a circle will show what it is, and show its generating principle [Lowe] |
| 16540 | Defining an ellipse by conic sections reveals necessities, but not the essence of an ellipse [Lowe] |
| 16548 | An essence is what an entity is, revealed by a real definition; this is not an entity in its own right [Lowe] |
| 16549 | Simple things like 'red' can be given real ostensive definitions [Lowe] |
| 14008 | The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne] |
| 16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard] |
| 14010 | All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne] |
| 14009 | It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne] |
| 16545 | The essence of lumps and statues shows that two objects coincide but are numerically distinct [Lowe] |
| 16546 | The essence of a bronze statue shows that it could be made of different bronze [Lowe] |
| 16551 | Grasping an essence is just grasping a real definition [Lowe] |
| 16542 | Explanation can't give an account of essence, because it is too multi-faceted [Lowe] |
| 16552 | If we must know some entity to know an essence, we lack a faculty to do that [Lowe] |
| 16013 | Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard] |
| 16533 | Logical necessities, based on laws of logic, are a proper sub-class of metaphysical necessities [Lowe] |
| 16531 | 'Metaphysical' necessity is absolute and objective - the strongest kind of necessity [Lowe] |
| 16532 | 'Epistemic' necessity is better called 'certainty' [Lowe] |
| 16543 | If an essence implies p, then p is an essential truth, and hence metaphysically necessary [Lowe] |
| 16544 | Metaphysical necessity is either an essential truth, or rests on essential truths [Lowe] |
| 16538 | We could give up possible worlds if we based necessity on essences [Lowe] |
| 16534 | 'Intuitions' are just unreliable 'hunches'; over centuries intuitions change enormously [Lowe] |
| 16535 | A concept is a way of thinking of things or kinds, whether or not they exist [Lowe] |
| 16550 | Direct reference doesn't seem to require that thinkers know what it is they are thinking about [Lowe] |
| 16547 | H2O isn't necessary, because different laws of nature might affect how O and H combine [Lowe] |
| 14016 | The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne] |
| 14019 | Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne] |
| 14013 | Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne] |
| 14015 | No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne] |
| 14007 | How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne] |
| 14011 | Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne] |
| 14017 | Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne] |
| 14003 | Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne] |
| 14005 | B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne] |
| 14006 | Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne] |