52 ideas
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
19400 | Possibles demand existence, so as many of them as possible must actually exist [Leibniz] |
19401 | God's sufficient reason for choosing reality is in the fitness or perfection of possibilities [Leibniz] |
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] |
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] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
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] |
14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |
14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
19402 | The actual universe is the richest composite of what is possible [Leibniz] |
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] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [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] |