Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence', 'Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences' and 'Reference and Modality'

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21 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
13917 Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
13919 Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
10928 Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive
10925 Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
10926 Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
15148 Powers give explanations, without being necessary for some class membership [Chakravartty]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
13918 Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
15145 A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
13921 All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
13922 Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
10930 Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine]
15147 Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
13920 Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
14645 To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
9201 Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K]
10927 Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
9203 We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
15144 Explanation of causal phenomena concerns essential kinds - but also lack of them [Chakravartty]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 4. Source of Kinds
15146 Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
15151 Many causal laws do not refer to kinds, but only to properties [Chakravartty]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
10931 We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine]