66 ideas
| 17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| 17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
| 17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
| 12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
| 14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
| 17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
| 17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
| 17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
| 17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
| 17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
| 17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
| 15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| 17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| 7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
| 17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
| 11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
| 17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
| 11979 | It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis] |
| 16994 | Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis] |
| 11974 | Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis] |
| 11975 | If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis] |
| 11977 | Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis] |
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| 7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
| 17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
| 17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
| 17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
| 17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
| 17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
| 17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
| 17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
| 7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
| 7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
| 7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| 7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
| 7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
| 7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
| 7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
| 7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
| 7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
| 7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
| 7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
| 7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
| 7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
| 7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
| 7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
| 7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
| 7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
| 7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
| 17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
| 7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
| 17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
| 17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
| 17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
| 17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
| 8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
| 16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
| 9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |