43 ideas
| 19090 | If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty] |
| 12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
| 12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
| 12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
| 12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
| 12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
| 12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
| 12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
| 12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
| 12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
| 12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
| 12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
| 12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
| 12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
| 12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| 12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
| 12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
| 12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
| 13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
| 13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
| 13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
| 13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
| 13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
| 13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
| 13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
| 13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
| 13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
| 13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
| 13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
| 13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
| 13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
| 13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
| 13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
| 13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
| 13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
| 13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
| 13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
| 12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
| 12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
| 12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
| 12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |