33 ideas
| 13070 | If definitions must be general, and general terms can't individuate, then Socrates can't be defined [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 11197 | The definitions expressing identity are used to sort things [Aquinas] |
| 4742 | Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong] |
| 11195 | If affirmative propositions express being, we affirm about what is absent [Aquinas] |
| 9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 15550 | Properties are contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 11201 | Properties have an incomplete essence, with definitions referring to their subject [Aquinas] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 11205 | If the form of 'human' contains 'many', Socrates isn't human; if it contains 'one', Socrates is Plato [Aquinas] |
| 13090 | The principle of diversity for corporeal substances is their matter [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 11202 | It is by having essence that things exist [Aquinas] |
| 11203 | Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas] |
| 11200 | The definition of a physical object must include the material as well as the form [Aquinas] |
| 11196 | Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas] |
| 11208 | A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas] |
| 4743 | The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong] |
| 11198 | Definition of essence makes things understandable [Aquinas] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 11206 | The mind constructs complete attributions, based on the unified elements of the real world [Aquinas] |
| 11207 | A cause can exist without its effect, but the effect cannot exist without its cause [Aquinas] |
| 4798 | In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation [Armstrong, by Psillos] |