63 ideas
| 14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
| 14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
| 14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
| 14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| 14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| 14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
| 14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
| 14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
| 14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
| 14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
| 14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
| 14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
| 14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
| 14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
| 14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
| 14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
| 14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
| 14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
| 14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
| 4266 | Having beliefs involves recognition, expectation and surprise [Scruton] |
| 4265 | If an animal has beliefs, that implies not only that it can make mistakes, but that it can learn from them [Scruton] |
| 4264 | Perception (which involves an assessment) is a higher state than sensation [Scruton] |
| 4271 | There is consciousness whenever behaviour must be explained in terms of mental activity [Scruton] |
| 4272 | Our concept of a person is derived from Roman law [Scruton] |
| 4267 | Conditioning may change behaviour without changing the mind [Scruton] |
| 4269 | An emotion is a motive which is also a feeling [Scruton] |
| 4270 | Do we use reason to distinguish people from animals, or use that difference to define reason? [Scruton] |
| 4284 | All moral life depends ultimately on piety, which is our recognition of our own dependence [Scruton] |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| 4273 | Kant's Moral Law is the rules rational beings would accept when trying to live by agreement [Scruton] |
| 4274 | The modern virtues are courage, prudence, wisdom, temperance, justice, charity and loyalty [Scruton] |
| 4286 | Only just people will drop their own self-interests when faced with an impartial verdict [Scruton] |
| 4283 | Sympathy can undermine the moral order just as much as crime does [Scruton] |
| 4290 | That which can only be done by a callous person, ought not to be done [Scruton] |
| 4285 | As soon as we drop self-interest and judge impartially, we find ourselves agreeing about conflicts [Scruton] |
| 4287 | Utilitarianism merely guides us (by means of sympathy) when the moral law is silent [Scruton] |
| 4282 | Morality is not a sort of calculation, it is what sets the limits to when calculation is appropriate [Scruton] |
| 4281 | Utilitarianism says we can't blame Stalin yet, but such a theory is a sick joke [Scruton] |
| 4280 | Utilitarianism is wrong precisely because it can't distinguish animals from people [Scruton] |
| 4295 | We favour our own animals over foreign ones because we see them as fellow citizens [Scruton] |
| 4268 | Animals command our sympathy and moral concern initially because of their intentionality [Scruton] |
| 4291 | Letting your dog kill wild rats, and keeping rats for your dog to kill, are very different [Scruton] |
| 4263 | Many of the stranger forms of life (e.g. worms) interest us only as a species, not as individuals [Scruton] |
| 4276 | An animal has individuality if it is nameable, and advanced animals can respond to their name [Scruton] |
| 4277 | I may avoid stepping on a spider or flower, but fellow-feeling makes me protect a rabbit [Scruton] |
| 4278 | Lucky animals are eaten by large predators, the less lucky starve, and worst is death by small predators [Scruton] |
| 4279 | We can easily remove the risk of suffering from an animal's life, but we shouldn't do it [Scruton] |
| 4289 | Sheep and cattle live comfortable lives, and die an enviably easy death [Scruton] |
| 4292 | Concern for one animal may harm the species, if the individual is part of a bigger problem [Scruton] |
| 4294 | Animals are outside the community of rights, but we still have duties towards them [Scruton] |
| 4296 | Brutal animal sports are banned because they harm the personality of the watcher [Scruton] |
| 4288 | Many breeds of animals have needs which our own ancestors planted in them [Scruton] |
| 4293 | Introducing a natural means of controlling animal population may not be very compassionate [Scruton] |
| 14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| 14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
| 14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
| 14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |