40 ideas
| 11159 | My account shows how the concept works, rather than giving an analysis [Fine,K] |
| 17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
| 17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
| 11157 | Modern philosophy has largely abandoned real definitions, apart from sortals [Fine,K] |
| 11171 | Defining a term and giving the essence of an object don't just resemble - they are the same [Fine,K] |
| 11151 | An object is dependent if its essence prevents it from existing without some other object [Fine,K] |
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| 11152 | Essences are either taken as real definitions, or as necessary properties [Fine,K] |
| 11161 | Essentially having a property is naturally expressed as 'the property it must have to be what it is' [Fine,K] |
| 11160 | Simple modal essentialism refers to necessary properties of an object [Fine,K] |
| 11158 | Essentialist claims can be formulated more clearly with quantified modal logic [Fine,K] |
| 11167 | Metaphysical necessity is a special case of essence, not vice versa [Fine,K] |
| 16537 | Essence as necessary properties produces a profusion of essential properties [Fine,K, by Lowe] |
| 11163 | The nature of singleton Socrates has him as a member, but not vice versa [Fine,K] |
| 11164 | It is not part of the essence of Socrates that a huge array of necessary truths should hold [Fine,K] |
| 10935 | An essential property of something must be bound up with what it is to be that thing [Fine,K, by Rami] |
| 10936 | Essential properties are part of an object's 'definition' [Fine,K, by Rami] |
| 11165 | If Socrates lacks necessary existence, then his nature cannot require his parents' existence [Fine,K] |
| 11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
| 11166 | The subject of a proposition need not be the source of its necessity [Fine,K] |
| 11169 | Conceptual necessities rest on the nature of all concepts [Fine,K] |
| 11162 | Socrates is necessarily distinct from the Eiffel Tower, but that is not part of his essence [Fine,K] |
| 11168 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the nature of all objects [Fine,K] |
| 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] |
| 17073 | I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart] |
| 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] |
| 17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart] |
| 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] |
| 17071 | An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart] |
| 17062 | If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart] |
| 17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
| 11170 | Analytic truth may only be true in virtue of the meanings of certain terms [Fine,K] |
| 11172 | The meaning of 'bachelor' is irrelevant to the meaning of 'unmarried man' [Fine,K] |
| 17063 | Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart] |