40 ideas
8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
23708 | Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG] |
23709 | Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
23707 | Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23714 | Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23711 | A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23712 | Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23698 | Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23699 | 'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23700 | A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23701 | A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23702 | A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23703 | Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
23704 | We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
23710 | Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |
23706 | Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |