76 ideas
| 10373 | Logical form can't dictate metaphysics, as it may propose an undesirable property [Schaffer,J] |
| 14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10367 | There is only one fact - the True [Schaffer,J] |
| 14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 21093 | Friendship without community spirit misses out on the main part of virtue [Hume] |
| 21091 | It would be absurd if even a free constitution did not impose restraints, for the public good [Hume] |
| 21092 | Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume] |
| 10359 | In causation there are three problems of relata, and three metaphysical problems [Schaffer,J] |
| 10372 | Causation may not be transitive; the last event may follow from the first, but not be caused by it [Schaffer,J] |
| 10374 | There are at least ten theories about causal connections [Schaffer,J] |
| 14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10366 | Causation transcends nature, because absences can cause things [Schaffer,J] |
| 10377 | Causation may not be a process, if a crucial part of the process is 'disconnected' [Schaffer,J] |
| 10378 | A causal process needs to be connected to the effect in the right way [Schaffer,J] |
| 10382 | Causation can't be a process, because a process needs causation as a primitive [Schaffer,J] |
| 14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10375 | At least four rivals have challenged the view that causal direction is time direction [Schaffer,J] |
| 10389 | Causal order must be temporal, or else causes could be blocked, and time couldn't be explained [Schaffer,J] |
| 10390 | Causal order is not temporal, because of time travel, and simultanous, joint or backward causes [Schaffer,J] |
| 10380 | Causation is primitive; it is too intractable and central to be reduced; all explanations require it [Schaffer,J] |
| 10385 | If causation is just observables, or part of common sense, or vacuous, it can't be primitive [Schaffer,J] |
| 14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10387 | The notion of causation allows understanding of science, without appearing in equations [Schaffer,J] |
| 10388 | Causation is utterly essential for numerous philosophical explanations [Schaffer,J] |
| 10384 | If two different causes are possible in one set of circumstances, causation is primitive [Schaffer,J] |
| 10386 | If causation is primitive, it can be experienced in ourselves, or inferred as best explanation [Schaffer,J] |
| 10361 | Events are fairly course-grained (just saying 'hello'), unlike facts (like saying 'hello' loudly) [Schaffer,J] |
| 10360 | Causal relata are events - or facts, features, tropes, states, situations or aspects [Schaffer,J] |
| 10362 | One may defend three or four causal relata, as in 'c causes e rather than e*' [Schaffer,J] |
| 10368 | If causal relata must be in nature and fine-grained, neither facts nor events will do [Schaffer,J] |
| 10383 | The relata of causation (such as events) need properties as explanation, which need causation! [Schaffer,J] |
| 14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10393 | Our selection of 'the' cause is very predictable, so must have a basis [Schaffer,J] |
| 10394 | Selecting 'the' cause must have a basis; there is no causation without such a selection [Schaffer,J] |
| 14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 10376 | The actual cause may make an event less likely than a possible more effective cause [Schaffer,J] |
| 10381 | All four probability versions of causation may need causation to be primitive [Schaffer,J] |
| 14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |