61 ideas
14027 | If we are to use words in enquiry, we need their main, unambiguous and uncontested meanings [Epicurus] |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
14040 | Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus] |
14028 | Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus] |
14029 | If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus] |
14030 | The totality is complete, so there is no room for it to change, and nothing extraneous to change it [Epicurus] |
14048 | Astronomical movements are blessed, but they don't need the help of the gods [Epicurus] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
14044 | The perceived accidental properties of bodies cannot be conceived of as independent natures [Epicurus] |
14045 | Accidental properties give a body its nature, but are not themselves bodies or parts of bodies [Epicurus] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
14046 | A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus] |
14047 | Bodies have impermanent properties, and permanent ones which define its conceived nature [Epicurus] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
14039 | Above and below us will never appear to be the same, because it is inconceivable [Epicurus] |
14050 | We aim to dissolve our fears, by understanding their causes [Epicurus] |
14037 | Atoms only have shape, weight and size, and the properties which accompany shape [Epicurus] |
6010 | Illusions are not false perceptions, as we accurately perceive the pattern of atoms [Epicurus, by Modrak] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
14041 | The soul is fine parts distributed through the body, resembling hot breath [Epicurus] |
5210 | We could know what a lion thinks by mapping both its brain patterns and its experiences [Douglas,A] |
14042 | The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
14032 | Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus] |
14033 | Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
14034 | There exists an infinity of each shape of atom, but the number of shapes is beyond our knowledge [Epicurus] |
14035 | Atoms just have shape, size and weight; colour results from their arrangement [Epicurus] |
14038 | There cannot be unlimited division, because it would reduce things to non-existence [Epicurus] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
14049 | We aim to know the natures which are observed in natural phenomena [Epicurus] |
14043 | The void cannot interact, but just gives the possibility of motion [Epicurus] |
14031 | Space must exist, since movement is obvious, and there must be somewhere to move in [Epicurus] |
14036 | There are endless cosmoi, some like and some unlike this one [Epicurus] |