55 ideas
15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
5311 | If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO] |
18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
5312 | A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO] |
15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
5310 | Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO] |
5313 | The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO] |
5316 | We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO] |
5318 | Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO] |
5317 | The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO] |
5308 | The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO] |
15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
5314 | Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO] |
5315 | Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |