36 ideas
| 23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
| 5438 | Hermeneutics of tradition is sympathetic, hermeneutics of suspicion is hostile [Ricoeur, by Mautner] |
| 23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| 23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
| 23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
| 23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
| 23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
| 23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
| 23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
| 23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
| 23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
| 23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
| 23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| 23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |