75 ideas
| 23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
| 23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
| 18019 | People have dreams which involve category mistakes [Magidor] |
| 17998 | Category mistakes are either syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic [Magidor] |
| 18011 | Category mistakes seem to be universal across languages [Magidor] |
| 18012 | Category mistakes as syntactic needs a huge number of fine-grained rules [Magidor] |
| 18013 | Embedded (in 'he said that…') category mistakes show syntax isn't the problem [Magidor] |
| 18021 | Category mistakes are meaningful, because metaphors are meaningful category mistakes [Magidor] |
| 18015 | The normal compositional view makes category mistakes meaningful [Magidor] |
| 18017 | If a category mistake is synonymous across two languages, that implies it is meaningful [Magidor] |
| 18031 | If a category mistake has unimaginable truth-conditions, then it seems to be meaningless [Magidor] |
| 18016 | Two good sentences should combine to make a good sentence, but that might be absurd [Magidor] |
| 18030 | A good explanation of why category mistakes sound wrong is that they are meaningless [Magidor] |
| 18032 | Category mistakes are neither verifiable nor analytic, so verificationism says they are meaningless [Magidor] |
| 18034 | Category mistakes play no role in mental life, so conceptual role semantics makes them meaningless [Magidor] |
| 18037 | Maybe when you say 'two is green', the predicate somehow fails to apply? [Magidor] |
| 18039 | If category mistakes aren't syntax failure or meaningless, maybe they just lack a truth-value? [Magidor] |
| 18058 | Maybe the presuppositions of category mistakes are the abilities of things? [Magidor] |
| 18041 | Category mistakes suffer from pragmatic presupposition failure (which is not mere triviality) [Magidor] |
| 18056 | Category mistakes because of presuppositions still have a truth value (usually 'false') [Magidor] |
| 18055 | In 'two is green', 'green' has a presupposition of being coloured [Magidor] |
| 18057 | 'Numbers are coloured and the number two is green' seems to be acceptable [Magidor] |
| 18059 | The presuppositions in category mistakes reveal nothing about ontology [Magidor] |
| 18040 | Intensional logic maps logical space, showing which predicates are compatible or incompatible [Magidor] |
| 17997 | Some suggest that the Julius Caesar problem involves category mistakes [Magidor] |
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| 23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
| 23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
| 23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
| 23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
| 23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
| 23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
| 23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
| 23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
| 23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
| 18060 | We can explain the statue/clay problem by a category mistake with a false premise [Magidor] |
| 23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
| 18020 | Propositional attitudes relate agents to either propositions, or meanings, or sentence/utterances [Magidor] |
| 18035 | Two sentences with different meanings can, on occasion, have the same content [Magidor] |
| 18018 | To grasp 'two' and 'green', must you know that two is not green? [Magidor] |
| 18008 | Generative semantics says structure is determined by semantics as well as syntactic rules [Magidor] |
| 18010 | 'John is easy to please' and 'John is eager to please' have different deep structure [Magidor] |
| 18053 | The semantics of a sentence is its potential for changing a context [Magidor] |
| 18000 | Weaker compositionality says meaningful well-formed sentences get the meaning from the parts [Magidor] |
| 17999 | Strong compositionality says meaningful expressions syntactically well-formed are meaningful [Magidor] |
| 18014 | Understanding unlimited numbers of sentences suggests that meaning is compositional [Magidor] |
| 18001 | Are there partial propositions, lacking truth value in some possible worlds? [Magidor] |
| 18036 | A sentence can be meaningful, and yet lack a truth value [Magidor] |
| 18051 | In the pragmatic approach, presuppositions are assumed in a context, for successful assertion [Magidor] |
| 18043 | The infelicitiousness of trivial truth is explained by uninformativeness, or a static context-set [Magidor] |
| 18042 | The infelicitiousness of trivial falsity is explained by expectations, or the loss of a context-set [Magidor] |
| 18047 | A presupposition is what makes an utterance sound wrong if it is not assumed? [Magidor] |
| 18048 | A test for presupposition would be if it provoked 'hey wait a minute - I have no idea that....' [Magidor] |
| 18049 | The best tests for presupposition are projecting it to negation, conditional, conjunction, questions [Magidor] |
| 18050 | If both s and not-s entail a sentence p, then p is a presupposition [Magidor] |
| 18054 | Why do certain words trigger presuppositions? [Magidor] |
| 18024 | One theory says metaphors mean the same as the corresponding simile [Magidor] |
| 18023 | Theories of metaphor divide over whether they must have literal meanings [Magidor] |
| 18025 | The simile view of metaphors removes their magic, and won't explain why we use them [Magidor] |
| 18026 | Maybe a metaphor is just a substitute for what is intended literally, like 'icy' for 'unemotional' [Magidor] |
| 18028 | Gricean theories of metaphor involve conversational implicatures based on literal meanings [Magidor] |
| 18029 | Non-cognitivist views of metaphor says there are no metaphorical meanings, just effects of the literal [Magidor] |
| 18022 | Metaphors tend to involve category mistakes, by joining disjoint domains [Magidor] |
| 18027 | Metaphors as substitutes for the literal misses one predicate varying with context [Magidor] |
| 23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
| 23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
| 23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
| 12709 | Motion is not absolute, but consists in relation [Leibniz] |