44 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |