78 ideas
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| 14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
| 14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
| 15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| 10354 | Correspondence could be with other beliefs, rather than external facts [Kusch] |
| 10353 | Tarskians distinguish truth from falsehood by relations between members of sets [Kusch] |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| 15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
| 14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
| 14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
| 15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
| 15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
| 15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
| 15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
| 15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| 15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
| 15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
| 15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
| 15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
| 14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
| 14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| 15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| 10337 | We can have knowledge without belief, if others credit us with knowledge [Kusch] |
| 10357 | Methodological Solipsism assumes all ideas could be derived from one mind [Kusch] |
| 10339 | Foundations seem utterly private, even from oneself at a later time [Kusch] |
| 10331 | Testimony is reliable if it coheres with evidence for a belief, and with other beliefs [Kusch] |
| 10338 | The coherentist restricts the space of reasons to the realm of beliefs [Kusch] |
| 10340 | Individualistic coherentism lacks access to all of my beliefs, or critical judgement of my assessment [Kusch] |
| 10345 | Individual coherentism cannot generate the necessary normativity [Kusch] |
| 10350 | Cultures decide causal routes, and they can be critically assessed [Kusch] |
| 10343 | Process reliabilism has been called 'virtue epistemology', resting on perception, memory, reason [Kusch] |
| 10341 | Justification depends on the audience and one's social role [Kusch] |
| 10325 | Vindicating testimony is an expression of individualism [Kusch] |
| 10324 | Testimony does not just transmit knowledge between individuals - it actually generates knowledge [Kusch] |
| 10327 | Some want to reduce testimony to foundations of perceptions, memories and inferences [Kusch] |
| 10329 | Testimony won't reduce to perception, if perception depends on social concepts and categories [Kusch] |
| 10330 | A foundation is what is intelligible, hence from a rational source, and tending towards truth [Kusch] |
| 10334 | Testimony is an area in which epistemology meets ethics [Kusch] |
| 10336 | Powerless people are assumed to be unreliable, even about their own lives [Kusch] |
| 10323 | Communitarian Epistemology says 'knowledge' is a social status granted to groups of people [Kusch] |
| 10348 | Private justification is justification to imagined other people [Kusch] |
| 10335 | Myths about lonely genius are based on epistemological individualism [Kusch] |
| 14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
| 14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
| 14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
| 14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
| 14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| 10349 | To be considered 'an individual' is performed by a society [Kusch] |
| 10344 | Our experience may be conceptual, but surely not the world itself? [Kusch] |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| 10358 | Often socialising people is the only way to persuade them [Kusch] |
| 5655 | Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton] |
| 10333 | Communitarianism in epistemology sees the community as the primary knower [Kusch] |
| 10351 | Natural kinds are social institutions [Kusch] |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| 14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| 15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
| 10332 | Omniscience is incoherent, since knowledge is a social concept [Kusch] |