141 ideas
16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
16288 | Analysis reduces primitives and makes understanding explicit (without adding new knowledge) [Lewis] |
14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
15731 | Quantification sometimes commits to 'sets', but sometimes just to pluralities (or 'classes') [Lewis] |
17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
10470 | There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver] |
9650 | Supervenience concerns whether things could differ, so it is a modal notion [Lewis] |
17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
9057 | Vagueness is semantic indecision: we haven't settled quite what our words are meant to express [Lewis] |
9671 | Whether or not France is hexagonal depends on your standards of precision [Lewis] |
17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
15751 | Surely 'slept in by Washington' is a property of some bed? [Lewis] |
15735 | Properties don't have degree; they are determinate, and things have varying relations to them [Lewis] |
9656 | The 'abundant' properties are just any bizarre property you fancy [Lewis] |
15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
15742 | A disjunctive property can be unnatural, but intrinsic if its disjuncts are intrinsic [Lewis] |
15397 | If a global intrinsic never varies between possible duplicates, all necessary properties are intrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
15398 | Global intrinsic may make necessarily coextensive properties both intrinsic or both extrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
15741 | All of the natural properties are included among the intrinsic properties [Lewis] |
15752 | We might try defining the natural properties by a short list of them [Lewis] |
14996 | Natural properties give similarity, joint carving, intrinsicness, specificity, homogeneity... [Lewis] |
15744 | We can't define natural properties by resemblance, if they are used to explain resemblance [Lewis] |
15743 | Defining natural properties by means of laws of nature is potentially circular [Lewis] |
15740 | I don't take 'natural' properties to be fixed by the nature of one possible world [Lewis] |
16262 | Sparse properties rest either on universals, or on tropes, or on primitive naturalness [Lewis, by Maudlin] |
15739 | There is the property of belonging to a set, so abundant properties are as numerous as the sets [Lewis] |
10723 | A property is the set of its actual and possible instances [Lewis, by Oliver] |
15399 | The property of being F is identical with the set of objects, in all possible worlds, which are F [Lewis, by Cameron] |
15732 | Properties don't seem to be sets, because different properties can have the same set [Lewis] |
15733 | Accidentally coextensive properties come apart when we include their possible instances [Lewis] |
15734 | If a property is relative, such as being a father or son, then set membership seems relative too [Lewis] |
9655 | Trilateral and triangular seem to be coextensive sets in all possible worlds [Lewis] |
16290 | I believe in properties, which are sets of possible individuals [Lewis] |
9653 | It would be easiest to take a property as the set of its instances [Lewis] |
9657 | You must accept primitive similarity to like tropes, but tropes give a good account of it [Lewis] |
15750 | Tropes need a similarity primitive, so they cannot be used to explain similarity [Lewis] |
15749 | Trope theory (unlike universals) needs a primitive notion of being duplicates [Lewis] |
15748 | Trope theory needs a primitive notion for what unites some tropes [Lewis] |
15745 | Universals recur, are multiply located, wholly present, make things overlap, and are held in common [Lewis] |
15746 | If particles were just made of universals, similar particles would be the same particle [Lewis] |
15747 | Universals aren't parts of things, because that relationship is transitive, and universals need not be [Lewis] |
17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
9667 | Mereological composition is unrestricted: any class of things has a mereological sum [Lewis] |
13268 | There are no restrictions on composition, because they would be vague, and composition can't be vague [Lewis, by Sider] |
13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
9663 | A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis] |
14737 | Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
9664 | Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis] |
9665 | There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis] |
17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
19280 | I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis] |
17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
15968 | Identity is simple - absolutely everything is self-identical, and nothing is identical to another thing [Lewis] |
15969 | Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis] |
13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
9660 | The impossible can be imagined as long as it is a bit vague [Lewis] |
9669 | There are no free-floating possibilia; they have mates in a world, giving them extrinsic properties [Lewis] |
16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
16284 | Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis] |
16286 | Linguistic possible worlds need a complete supply of unique names for each thing [Lewis] |
16287 | Maximal consistency for a world seems a modal distinction, concerning what could be true together [Lewis] |
9662 | Linguistic possible worlds have problems of inconsistencies, no indiscernibles, and vocabulary [Lewis] |
7690 | If sets exist, then defining worlds as proposition sets implies an odd distinction between existing and actual [Jacquette on Lewis] |
17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
14404 | The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks] |
5440 | A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner] |
5441 | Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis] |
16291 | In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis] |
11903 | Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider [Lewis, by Mackie,P] |
15129 | Haecceitism implies de re differences but qualitative identity [Lewis] |
9670 | Extreme haecceitism says you might possibly be a poached egg [Lewis] |
17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
16279 | General causal theories of knowledge are refuted by mathematics [Lewis] |
9661 | Induction is just reasonable methods of inferring the unobserved from the observed [Lewis] |
9652 | To just expect unexamined emeralds to be grue would be totally unreasonable [Lewis] |
9658 | An explanation tells us how an event was caused [Lewis] |
16280 | Often explanaton seeks fundamental laws, rather than causal histories [Lewis] |
16274 | If the well-ordering of a pack of cards was by shuffling, the explanation would make it more surprising [Lewis] |
8901 | Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively [Lewis] |
8904 | The Way of Abstraction says an incomplete description of a concrete entity is the complete abstraction [Lewis] |
8938 | The Way of Example compares donkeys and numbers, but what is the difference, and what are numbers? [Lewis] |
8903 | Abstracta can be causal: sets can be causes or effects; there can be universal effects; events may be sets [Lewis] |
8902 | If abstractions are non-spatial, then both sets and universals seem to have locations [Lewis] |
8905 | If universals or tropes are parts of things, then abstraction picks out those parts [Lewis] |
8906 | If we can abstract the extrinsic relations and features of objects, abstraction isn't universals or tropes [Lewis] |
8907 | The abstract direction of a line is the equivalence class of it and all lines parallel to it [Lewis] |
8908 | For most sets, the concept of equivalence is too artificial to explain abstraction [Lewis] |
16289 | We can't account for an abstraction as 'from' something if the something doesn't exist [Lewis] |
16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
9654 | A proposition is a set of entire possible worlds which instantiate a particular property [Lewis] |
15736 | A proposition is the property of being a possible world where it holds true [Lewis] |
15738 | Propositions can't have syntactic structure if they are just sets of worlds [Lewis] |
9659 | Causation is when at the closest world without the cause, there is no effect either [Lewis] |
17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
9666 | It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis] |
17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |