82 ideas
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| 23183 | Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 23188 | Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche] |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| 23212 | A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche] |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| 23199 | What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche] |
| 23202 | Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche] |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| 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] |
| 23196 | Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 23186 | Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche] |
| 23211 | Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [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] |
| 23201 | The 'I' does not think; it is a construction of thinking, like other useful abstractions [Nietzsche] |
| 23207 | Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche] |
| 23197 | Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche] |
| 23206 | Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche] |
| 23209 | Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 23184 | The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
| 23190 | Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche] |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| 23191 | Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche] |
| 23213 | The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche] |
| 23210 | That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche] |
| 23189 | Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche] |
| 23192 | Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche] |
| 23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| 23205 | Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 23198 | Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche] |
| 23208 | Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche] |
| 23193 | Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche] |
| 23214 | For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche] |
| 23203 | The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche] |
| 23200 | The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche] |
| 23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
| 23204 | To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche] |
| 23195 | Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche] |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| 12709 | Motion is not absolute, but consists in relation [Leibniz] |
| 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] |
| 23185 | In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche] |