Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Future for Presentism', 'Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man' and 'Locke on Human Understanding'

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23 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / c. Philosophy as generalisation
Philosophy aims to understand how things (broadly understood) hang together (broadly understood) [Sellars]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations [Sellars]
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne]
It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity
The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne]
Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time
Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne]
B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series
Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne]