77 ideas
| 18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
| 18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
| 18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
| 18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
| 18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
| 18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
| 18806 | Frege thought traditional categories had psychological and linguistic impurities [Frege, by Rumfitt] |
| 8490 | First-level functions have objects as arguments; second-level functions take functions as arguments [Frege] |
| 8492 | Relations are functions with two arguments [Frege] |
| 18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
| 18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
| 8487 | Arithmetic is a development of logic, so arithmetical symbolism must expand into logical symbolism [Frege] |
| 18899 | Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept [Frege, by Sommers] |
| 18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
| 18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
| 18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
| 18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
| 18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
| 18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
| 18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
| 18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
| 18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
| 4028 | Frege allows either too few properties (as extensions) or too many (as predicates) [Mellor/Oliver on Frege] |
| 18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
| 18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
| 18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
| 18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
| 18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| 8489 | The concept 'object' is too simple for analysis; unlike a function, it is an expression with no empty place [Frege] |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| 18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
| 18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
| 18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
| 18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| 23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
| 18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
| 18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
| 5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
| 5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
| 5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
| 5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
| 18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
| 18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
| 18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
| 9947 | Concepts are the ontological counterparts of predicative expressions [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
| 10319 | An assertion about the concept 'horse' must indirectly speak of an object [Frege, by Hale] |
| 8488 | A concept is a function whose value is always a truth-value [Frege] |
| 9948 | Unlike objects, concepts are inherently incomplete [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
| 4972 | I may regard a thought about Phosphorus as true, and the same thought about Hesperus as false [Frege] |
| 18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
| 5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
| 5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
| 5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
| 18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
| 5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
| 5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
| 5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
| 5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
| 18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
| 16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| 8491 | The Ontological Argument fallaciously treats existence as a first-level concept [Frege] |
| 5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
| 5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
| 5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
| 5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
| 5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |