53 ideas
| 18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
| 18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
| 18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
| 18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
| 18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
| 18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
| 18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
| 18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
| 18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
| 18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
| 18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
| 18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
| 18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
| 18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
| 18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
| 18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
| 18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
| 18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
| 18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
| 18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
| 9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
| 18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
| 18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
| 18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
| 18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
| 18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
| 8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
| 18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
| 19419 | Not all of perception is accompanied by consciousness [Leibniz] |
| 18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
| 8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
| 19421 | Souls act as if there were no bodies, and bodies act as if there were no souls [Leibniz] |
| 18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
| 18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
| 8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
| 19420 | Death and generation are just transformations of an animal, augmented or diminished [Leibniz] |
| 19416 | Not all of matter is animated, any more than a pond full of living fish is animated [Leibniz] |
| 19422 | Every particle of matter contains organic bodies [Leibniz] |
| 18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
| 8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
| 8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
| 10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
| 8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
| 8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
| 17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
| 8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
| 8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
| 4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
| 18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
| 19418 | Mechanics shows that all motion originates in other motion, so there is a Prime Mover [Leibniz] |
| 19417 | All substances are in harmony, even though separate, so they must have one divine cause [Leibniz] |