80 ideas
8558 | One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker] |
8559 | Analysis aims at internal relationships, not reduction [Shoemaker] |
14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
15092 | Formerly I said properties are individuated by essential causal powers and causing instantiation [Shoemaker, by Shoemaker] |
8543 | Genuine properties are closely related to genuine changes [Shoemaker] |
8551 | Properties must be essentially causal if we can know and speak about them [Shoemaker] |
8557 | To ascertain genuine properties, examine the object directly [Shoemaker] |
14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
15761 | We should abandon the idea that properties are the meanings of predicate expressions [Shoemaker] |
15756 | Some truths are not because of a thing's properties, but because of the properties of related things [Shoemaker] |
14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
15758 | Things have powers in virtue of (which are entailed by) their properties [Shoemaker] |
8547 | One power can come from different properties; a thing's powers come from its properties [Shoemaker] |
8549 | Properties are functions producing powers, and powers are functions producing effects [Shoemaker] |
14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
12678 | Shoemaker says all genuine properties are dispositional [Shoemaker, by Ellis] |
8545 | A causal theory of properties focuses on change, not (say) on abstract properties of numbers [Shoemaker] |
15757 | 'Square', 'round' and 'made of copper' show that not all properties are dispositional [Shoemaker] |
15759 | The identity of a property concerns its causal powers [Shoemaker] |
15760 | Properties are clusters of conditional powers [Shoemaker] |
15762 | Could properties change without the powers changing, or powers change without the properties changing? [Shoemaker] |
8552 | If properties are separated from causal powers, this invites total elimination [Shoemaker] |
4040 | The notions of property and of causal power are parts of a single system of related concepts [Shoemaker] |
15765 | Actually, properties are individuated by causes as well as effects [Shoemaker] |
14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
8548 | Dispositional predicates ascribe powers, and the rest ascribe properties [Shoemaker] |
14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
9485 | Universals concern how things are, and how they could be [Shoemaker, by Bird] |
8550 | Triangular and trilateral are coextensive, but different concepts; but powers and properties are the same [Shoemaker] |
14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
8555 | There is no subset of properties which guarantee a thing's identity [Shoemaker] |
14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
8554 | Possible difference across worlds depends on difference across time in the actual world [Shoemaker] |
14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
15764 | 'Conceivable' is either not-provably-false, or compatible with what we know? [Shoemaker] |
8562 | It is possible to conceive what is not possible [Shoemaker] |
14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
8556 | Grueness is not, unlike green and blue, associated with causal potential [Shoemaker] |
14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
7439 | The qualities involved in sensations are entirely intentional [Anscombe, by Armstrong] |
14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
8542 | If causality is between events, there must be reference to the properties involved [Shoemaker] |
14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
8560 | If causal laws describe causal potentialities, the same laws govern properties in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
15763 | If properties are causal, then causal necessity is a species of logical necessity [Shoemaker] |
8561 | If a world has different causal laws, it must have different properties [Shoemaker] |
14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
8553 | It looks as if the immutability of the powers of a property imply essentiality [Shoemaker] |
14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |