67 ideas
21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
7950 | Philosophy tries to explain how the actual is possible, given that it seems impossible [Macdonald,C] |
7923 | 'Did it for the sake of x' doesn't involve a sake, so how can ontological commitments be inferred? [Macdonald,C] |
15957 | Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle] |
7933 | Don't assume that a thing has all the properties of its parts [Macdonald,C] |
13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
7944 | Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk [Macdonald,C] |
7938 | Relational properties are clearly not essential to substances [Macdonald,C] |
7967 | Being taller is an external relation, but properties and substances have internal relations [Macdonald,C] |
7965 | Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge? [Macdonald,C] |
7934 | Tropes are abstract (two can occupy the same place), but not universals (they have locations) [Macdonald,C] |
7958 | Properties are sets of exactly resembling property-particulars [Macdonald,C] |
7972 | Tropes are abstract particulars, not concrete particulars, so the theory is not nominalist [Macdonald,C] |
7959 | How do a group of resembling tropes all resemble one another in the same way? [Macdonald,C] |
7960 | Trope Nominalism is the only nominalism to introduce new entities, inviting Ockham's Razor [Macdonald,C] |
15965 | Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
16735 | In the 17th century, 'disposition' usually just means the spatial arrangement of parts [Boyle, by Pasnau] |
7951 | Numerical sameness is explained by theories of identity, but what explains qualitative identity? [Macdonald,C] |
7964 | How can universals connect instances, if they are nothing like them? [Macdonald,C] |
7971 | Real Nominalism is only committed to concrete particulars, word-tokens, and (possibly) sets [Macdonald,C] |
7955 | Resemblance Nominalism cannot explain either new resemblances, or absence of resemblances [Macdonald,C] |
7961 | A 'thing' cannot be in two places at once, and two things cannot be in the same place at once [Macdonald,C] |
7926 | We 'individuate' kinds of object, and 'identify' particular specimens [Macdonald,C] |
7936 | Unlike bundles of properties, substances have an intrinsic unity [Macdonald,C] |
7930 | The bundle theory of substance implies the identity of indiscernibles [Macdonald,C] |
7932 | A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view [Macdonald,C] |
7937 | When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology [Macdonald,C] |
7939 | Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't [Macdonald,C] |
7940 | A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle [Macdonald,C] |
7948 | A statue and its matter have different persistence conditions, so they are not identical [Macdonald,C] |
16034 | Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle] |
15953 | To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle] |
12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
7929 | A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence [Macdonald,C] |
7941 | Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular [Macdonald,C] |
7942 | The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change [Macdonald,C] |
7943 | A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible [Macdonald,C] |
16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
7927 | At different times Leibniz articulated three different versions of his so-called Law [Macdonald,C] |
7928 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is false, because it is not necessarily true [Macdonald,C] |
16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
15962 | Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
15964 | Boyle's secondary qualities are not illusory, or 'in the mind' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
15960 | Explanation is deducing a phenomenon from some nature better known to us [Boyle] |
7947 | In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself [Macdonald,C] |
13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
15952 | The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
15972 | The corpuscular theory allows motion, but does not include forces between the particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |