69 ideas
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 8525 | Relations need terms, so they must be second-order entities based on first-order tropes [Campbell,K] |
| 8518 | Events are trope-sequences, in which tropes replace one another [Campbell,K] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 8513 | Two red cloths are separate instances of redness, because you can dye one of them blue [Campbell,K] |
| 8514 | Red could only recur in a variety of objects if it was many, which makes them particulars [Campbell,K] |
| 8522 | Tropes solve the Companionship Difficulty, since the resemblance is only between abstract particulars [Campbell,K] |
| 8523 | Tropes solve the Imperfect Community problem, as they can only resemble in one respect [Campbell,K] |
| 8524 | Trope theory makes space central to reality, as tropes must have a shape and size [Campbell,K] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 8521 | Nominalism has the problem that without humans nothing would resemble anything else [Campbell,K] |
| 8515 | Tropes are basic particulars, so concrete particulars are collections of co-located tropes [Campbell,K] |
| 8519 | Bundles must be unique, so the Identity of Indiscernibles is a necessity - which it isn't! [Campbell,K] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 4033 | Two pure spheres in non-absolute space are identical but indiscernible [Campbell,K] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 8512 | Abstractions come before the mind by concentrating on a part of what is presented [Campbell,K] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 21233 | The beautiful is whatever it is intrinsically good to admire [Moore,GE] |
| 8039 | Moore tries to show that 'good' is indefinable, but doesn't understand what a definition is [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 22151 | The Open Question argument leads to anti-realism and the fact-value distinction [Boulter on Moore,GE] |
| 11056 | The naturalistic fallacy claims that natural qualties can define 'good' [Moore,GE] |
| 8033 | Moore cannot show why something being good gives us a reason for action [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 8032 | Can learning to recognise a good friend help us to recognise a good watch? [MacIntyre on Moore,GE] |
| 11050 | Moore's combination of antinaturalism with strong supervenience on the natural is incoherent [Hanna on Moore,GE] |
| 23726 | Despite Moore's caution, non-naturalists incline towards intuitionism [Moore,GE, by Smith,M] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 18676 | We should ask what we would judge to be good if it existed in absolute isolation [Moore,GE] |
| 11057 | It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE] |
| 5925 | The three main values are good, right and beauty [Moore,GE, by Ross] |
| 5902 | For Moore, 'right' is what produces good [Moore,GE, by Ross] |
| 5903 | 'Right' means 'cause of good result' (hence 'useful'), so the end does justify the means [Moore,GE] |
| 5907 | Relationships imply duties to people, not merely the obligation to benefit them [Ross on Moore,GE] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 8517 | Causal conditions are particular abstract instances of properties, which makes them tropes [Campbell,K] |
| 8516 | Davidson can't explain causation entirely by events, because conditions are also involved [Campbell,K] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |