29 ideas
14212 | A consistent theory just needs one model; isomorphic versions will do too, and large domains provide those [Lewis] |
14213 | Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
14193 | 'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA] |
14195 | If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA] |
14196 | Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA] |
14210 | A gerrymandered mereological sum can be a mess, but still have natural joints [Lewis] |
14198 | Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would allow things with incompatible properties [Paul,LA] |
14190 | Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA] |
14191 | Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA] |
14192 | Essentialism must deal with charges of arbitrariness, and failure to reduce de re modality [Paul,LA] |
14197 | An object's modal properties don't determine its possibilities [Paul,LA] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
14189 | 'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
14215 | Causal theories of reference make errors in reference easy [Lewis] |
14209 | Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
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] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [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] |