29 ideas
21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |