Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Introduction to 'Properties'', 'The Logic of What Might Have Been' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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43 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
4037 Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 2. Tools of Modal Logic / b. Terminology of ML
14684 A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / d. System T
14669 For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / f. System B
14667 System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N]
14668 In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N]
14692 System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / g. System S4
14671 What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
14686 S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N]
14691 S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N]
14693 The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
14670 Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
4027 Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties
4029 Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
14678 Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
14680 Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
14690 In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N]
14677 Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N]
14679 Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N]
14688 Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N]
14685 Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
14681 Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
14676 Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
14689 Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / b. Impossible worlds
14674 Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N]
14682 Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N]
14687 Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
14683 Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
14672 Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N]
14675 Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / c. Worlds as propositions
14673 You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
17073 I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
17077 The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
17078 Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
17074 Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
17076 Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
17061 Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
17071 An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
17062 If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
17075 Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 5. Abstracta by Negation
4039 Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]