15 ideas
13917 | Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe] |
13919 | Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe] |
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
10558 | Abstract objects are actually constituted by the properties by which we conceive them [Zalta] |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
13918 | Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe] |
13921 | All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe] |
13922 | Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe] |
13920 | Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe] |
10557 | Abstract objects are captured by second-order modal logic, plus 'encoding' formulas [Zalta] |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |