37 ideas
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
| 15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
| 15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
| 15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
| 15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
| 15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
| 15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
| 15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
| 15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
| 15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
| 15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
| 15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
| 15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
| 12184 | Logical necessity overrules all other necessities [McFetridge] |
| 15083 | The fundamental case of logical necessity is the valid conclusion of an inference [McFetridge, by Hale] |
| 15084 | In the McFetridge view, logical necessity means a consequent must be true if the antecedent is [McFetridge, by Hale] |
| 12180 | Logical necessity requires that a valid argument be necessary [McFetridge] |
| 12181 | Traditionally, logical necessity is the strongest, and entails any other necessities [McFetridge] |
| 12183 | It is only logical necessity if there is absolutely no sense in which it could be false [McFetridge] |
| 12192 | The mark of logical necessity is deduction from any suppositions whatever [McFetridge] |
| 12182 | We assert epistemic possibility without commitment to logical possibility [McFetridge] |
| 12187 | Objectual modal realists believe in possible worlds; non-objectual ones rest it on the actual world [McFetridge] |
| 12186 | Modal realists hold that necessities and possibilities are part of the totality of facts [McFetridge] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |