87 ideas
16227 | Philosophers are good at denying the obvious [Hawley] |
17713 | After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares] |
18395 | Sets are mereological sums of the singletons of their members [Lewis, by Armstrong] |
15496 | We can build set theory on singletons: classes are then fusions of subclasses, membership is the singleton [Lewis] |
15500 | Classes divide into subclasses in many ways, but into members in only one way [Lewis] |
15499 | A subclass of a subclass is itself a subclass; a member of a member is not in general a member [Lewis] |
15503 | We needn't accept this speck of nothingness, this black hole in the fabric of Reality! [Lewis] |
15498 | We can accept the null set, but there is no null class of anything [Lewis] |
15502 | There are four main reasons for asserting that there is an empty set [Lewis] |
15506 | If we don't understand the singleton, then we don't understand classes [Lewis] |
15497 | We can replace the membership relation with the member-singleton relation (plus mereology) [Lewis] |
15511 | If singleton membership is external, why is an object a member of one rather than another? [Lewis] |
15513 | Maybe singletons have a structure, of a thing and a lasso? [Lewis] |
15507 | Set theory has some unofficial axioms, generalisations about how to understand it [Lewis] |
10191 | Set theory reduces to a mereological theory with singletons as the only atoms [Lewis, by MacBride] |
15508 | If singletons are where their members are, then so are all sets [Lewis] |
15514 | A huge part of Reality is only accepted as existing if you have accepted set theory [Lewis] |
15523 | Set theory isn't innocent; it generates infinities from a single thing; but mathematics needs it [Lewis] |
16216 | Part of the sense of a proper name is a criterion of the thing's identity [Hawley] |
15525 | Plural quantification lacks a complete axiom system [Lewis] |
15518 | I like plural quantification, but am not convinced of its connection with second-order logic [Lewis] |
17715 | The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares] |
15524 | Zermelo's model of arithmetic is distinctive because it rests on a primitive of set theory [Lewis] |
15517 | Giving up classes means giving up successful mathematics because of dubious philosophy [Lewis] |
15515 | To be a structuralist, you quantify over relations [Lewis] |
17716 | Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares] |
15520 | Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified [Lewis] |
16211 | A homogeneous rotating disc should be undetectable according to Humean supervenience [Hawley] |
15501 | We have no idea of a third sort of thing, that isn't an individual, a class, or their mixture [Lewis] |
15504 | Atomless gunk is an individual whose parts all have further proper parts [Lewis] |
16219 | Non-linguistic things cannot be indeterminate, because they don't have truth-values at all [Hawley] |
16223 | Maybe for the world to be vague, it must be vague in its foundations? [Hawley] |
16226 | Epistemic vagueness seems right in the case of persons [Hawley] |
16208 | Supervaluation refers to one vaguely specified thing, through satisfaction by everything in some range [Hawley] |
16221 | Supervaluationism takes what the truth-value would have been if indecision was resolved [Hawley] |
16230 | Maybe the only properties are basic ones like charge, mass and spin [Hawley] |
15516 | A property is any class of possibilia [Lewis] |
16232 | An object is 'natural' if its stages are linked by certain non-supervenient relations [Hawley] |
16200 | Are sortals spatially maximal - so no cat part is allowed to be a cat? [Hawley] |
16237 | The modal features of statue and lump are disputed; when does it stop being that statue? [Hawley] |
16238 | Perdurantists can adopt counterpart theory, to explain modal differences of identical part-sums [Hawley] |
16220 | Vagueness is either in our knowledge, in our talk, or in reality [Hawley] |
16222 | Indeterminacy in objects and in properties are not distinct cases [Hawley] |
14748 | The many are many and the one is one, so they can't be identical [Lewis] |
6129 | Lewis affirms 'composition as identity' - that an object is no more than its parts [Lewis, by Merricks] |
16228 | The constitution theory is endurantism plus more than one object in a place [Hawley] |
16229 | Constitution theory needs sortal properties like 'being a sweater' to distinguish it from its thread [Hawley] |
14492 | If the constitution view says thread and sweater are two things, why do we talk of one thing? [Hawley] |
15512 | In mereology no two things consist of the same atoms [Lewis] |
15519 | Trout-turkeys exist, despite lacking cohesion, natural joints and united causal power [Lewis] |
15521 | Given cats, a fusion of cats adds nothing further to reality [Lewis] |
15522 | The one has different truths from the many; it is one rather than many, one rather than six [Lewis] |
14244 | Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions [Oliver/Smiley on Lewis] |
10660 | A commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment; it is them and they are it [Lewis] |
10566 | Lewis prefers giving up singletons to giving up sums [Lewis, by Fine,K] |
16193 | 'Adverbialism' explains change by saying an object has-at-some-time a given property [Hawley] |
16195 | Presentism solves the change problem: the green banana ceases, so can't 'relate' to the yellow one [Hawley] |
16202 | The problem of change arises if there must be 'identity' of a thing over time [Hawley] |
16192 | Endurance theory can relate properties to times, or timed instantiations to properties [Hawley] |
16196 | Endurance is a sophisticated theory, covering properties, instantiation and time [Hawley] |
16197 | How does perdurance theory explain our concern for our own future selves? [Hawley] |
16191 | Perdurance needs an atemporal perspective, to say that the object 'has' different temporal parts [Hawley] |
16199 | If an object is the sum of all of its temporal parts, its mass is staggeringly large! [Hawley] |
16201 | Perdurance says things are sums of stages; Stage Theory says each stage is the thing [Hawley] |
16240 | If a life is essentially the sum of its temporal parts, it couldn't be shorter or longer than it was? [Hawley] |
16203 | Stage Theory seems to miss out the link between stages of the same object [Hawley] |
16204 | Stage Theory says every stage is a distinct object, which gives too many objects [Hawley] |
16212 | An isolated stage can't be a banana (which involves suitable relations to other stages) [Hawley] |
16213 | Stages of one thing are related by extrinsic counterfactual and causal relations [Hawley] |
16206 | Stages must be as fine-grained in length as change itself, so any change is a new stage [Hawley] |
16205 | The stages of Stage Theory seem too thin to populate the world, or to be referred to [Hawley] |
16225 | If two things might be identical, there can't be something true of one and false of the other [Hawley] |
17703 | Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares] |
16239 | To decide whether something is a counterpart, we need to specify a relevant sortal concept [Hawley] |
17714 | Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares] |
15509 | Some say qualities are parts of things - as repeatable universals, or as particulars [Lewis] |
17705 | Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares] |
17700 | The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares] |
17704 | Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares] |
16218 | On any theory of self, it is hard to explain why we should care about our future selves [Hawley] |
17710 | Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares] |
17706 | The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares] |
17701 | Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares] |
17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
16215 | Causation is nothing more than the counterfactuals it grounds? [Hawley] |
17708 | Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares] |
16207 | Time could be discrete (like integers) or dense (rationals) or continuous (reals) [Hawley] |