131 ideas
| 421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
| 1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
| 16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
| 5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
| 16288 | Analysis reduces primitives and makes understanding explicit (without adding new knowledge) [Lewis] |
| 414 | Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus] |
| 425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
| 416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
| 9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
| 1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
| 15731 | Quantification sometimes commits to 'sets', but sometimes just to pluralities (or 'classes') [Lewis] |
| 10470 | There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 9650 | Supervenience concerns whether things could differ, so it is a modal notion [Lewis] |
| 8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
| 9057 | Vagueness is semantic indecision: we haven't settled quite what our words are meant to express [Lewis] |
| 9671 | Whether or not France is hexagonal depends on your standards of precision [Lewis] |
| 15751 | Surely 'slept in by Washington' is a property of some bed? [Lewis] |
| 15735 | Properties don't have degree; they are determinate, and things have varying relations to them [Lewis] |
| 9656 | The 'abundant' properties are just any bizarre property you fancy [Lewis] |
| 15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
| 15742 | A disjunctive property can be unnatural, but intrinsic if its disjuncts are intrinsic [Lewis] |
| 15397 | If a global intrinsic never varies between possible duplicates, all necessary properties are intrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15398 | Global intrinsic may make necessarily coextensive properties both intrinsic or both extrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15741 | All of the natural properties are included among the intrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 15752 | We might try defining the natural properties by a short list of them [Lewis] |
| 14996 | Natural properties give similarity, joint carving, intrinsicness, specificity, homogeneity... [Lewis] |
| 15743 | Defining natural properties by means of laws of nature is potentially circular [Lewis] |
| 15744 | We can't define natural properties by resemblance, if they are used to explain resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15740 | I don't take 'natural' properties to be fixed by the nature of one possible world [Lewis] |
| 16262 | Sparse properties rest either on universals, or on tropes, or on primitive naturalness [Lewis, by Maudlin] |
| 15739 | There is the property of belonging to a set, so abundant properties are as numerous as the sets [Lewis] |
| 10723 | A property is the set of its actual and possible instances [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 9653 | It would be easiest to take a property as the set of its instances [Lewis] |
| 15399 | The property of being F is identical with the set of objects, in all possible worlds, which are F [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15733 | Accidentally coextensive properties come apart when we include their possible instances [Lewis] |
| 15732 | Properties don't seem to be sets, because different properties can have the same set [Lewis] |
| 15734 | If a property is relative, such as being a father or son, then set membership seems relative too [Lewis] |
| 9655 | Trilateral and triangular seem to be coextensive sets in all possible worlds [Lewis] |
| 16290 | I believe in properties, which are sets of possible individuals [Lewis] |
| 9657 | You must accept primitive similarity to like tropes, but tropes give a good account of it [Lewis] |
| 15748 | Trope theory needs a primitive notion for what unites some tropes [Lewis] |
| 15749 | Trope theory (unlike universals) needs a primitive notion of being duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15750 | Tropes need a similarity primitive, so they cannot be used to explain similarity [Lewis] |
| 15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
| 15745 | Universals recur, are multiply located, wholly present, make things overlap, and are held in common [Lewis] |
| 15746 | If particles were just made of universals, similar particles would be the same particle [Lewis] |
| 15747 | Universals aren't parts of things, because that relationship is transitive, and universals need not be [Lewis] |
| 13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
| 11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
| 9667 | Mereological composition is unrestricted: any class of things has a mereological sum [Lewis] |
| 13268 | There are no restrictions on composition, because they would be vague, and composition can't be vague [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
| 9663 | A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis] |
| 14737 | Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 9664 | Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis] |
| 9665 | There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis] |
| 11091 | You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus] |
| 427 | It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus] |
| 19280 | I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis] |
| 2064 | If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus] |
| 15968 | Identity is simple - absolutely everything is self-identical, and nothing is identical to another thing [Lewis] |
| 15969 | Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis] |
| 9660 | The impossible can be imagined as long as it is a bit vague [Lewis] |
| 9669 | There are no free-floating possibilia; they have mates in a world, giving them extrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
| 16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
| 12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
| 9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
| 15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
| 10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
| 16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
| 16284 | Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis] |
| 16286 | Linguistic possible worlds need a complete supply of unique names for each thing [Lewis] |
| 16287 | Maximal consistency for a world seems a modal distinction, concerning what could be true together [Lewis] |
| 9662 | Linguistic possible worlds have problems of inconsistencies, no indiscernibles, and vocabulary [Lewis] |
| 7690 | If sets exist, then defining worlds as proposition sets implies an odd distinction between existing and actual [Jacquette on Lewis] |
| 14404 | The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 5441 | Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis] |
| 5440 | A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner] |
| 16291 | In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis] |
| 11903 | Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider [Lewis, by Mackie,P] |
| 15129 | Haecceitism implies de re differences but qualitative identity [Lewis] |
| 9670 | Extreme haecceitism says you might possibly be a poached egg [Lewis] |
| 430 | Senses are no use if the soul is corrupt [Heraclitus] |
| 1500 | When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 16279 | General causal theories of knowledge are refuted by mathematics [Lewis] |
| 417 | Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus] |
| 426 | Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus] |
| 431 | Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus] |
| 9661 | Induction is just reasonable methods of inferring the unobserved from the observed [Lewis] |
| 9652 | To just expect unexamined emeralds to be grue would be totally unreasonable [Lewis] |
| 9658 | An explanation tells us how an event was caused [Lewis] |
| 16280 | Often explanaton seeks fundamental laws, rather than causal histories [Lewis] |
| 16274 | If the well-ordering of a pack of cards was by shuffling, the explanation would make it more surprising [Lewis] |
| 8901 | Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively [Lewis] |
| 8904 | The Way of Abstraction says an incomplete description of a concrete entity is the complete abstraction [Lewis] |
| 8938 | The Way of Example compares donkeys and numbers, but what is the difference, and what are numbers? [Lewis] |
| 8903 | Abstracta can be causal: sets can be causes or effects; there can be universal effects; events may be sets [Lewis] |
| 8902 | If abstractions are non-spatial, then both sets and universals seem to have locations [Lewis] |
| 8906 | If we can abstract the extrinsic relations and features of objects, abstraction isn't universals or tropes [Lewis] |
| 8905 | If universals or tropes are parts of things, then abstraction picks out those parts [Lewis] |
| 8908 | For most sets, the concept of equivalence is too artificial to explain abstraction [Lewis] |
| 8907 | The abstract direction of a line is the equivalence class of it and all lines parallel to it [Lewis] |
| 16289 | We can't account for an abstraction as 'from' something if the something doesn't exist [Lewis] |
| 16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
| 9654 | A proposition is a set of entire possible worlds which instantiate a particular property [Lewis] |
| 15736 | A proposition is the property of being a possible world where it holds true [Lewis] |
| 15738 | Propositions can't have syntactic structure if they are just sets of worlds [Lewis] |
| 429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
| 12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 419 | If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since nothing leads to it [Heraclitus] |
| 415 | If happiness is bodily pleasure, then oxen are happy when they have vetch to eat [Heraclitus] |
| 5996 | Critolaus redefined Aristotle's moral aim as fulfilment instead of happiness [Critolaus, by White,SA] |
| 5155 | It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure [Heraclitus] |
| 433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
| 422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
| 614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 424 | Reason tells us that all things are one [Heraclitus] |
| 17539 | The sayings of Heraclitus are still correct, if we replace 'fire' with 'energy' [Heraclitus, by Heisenberg] |
| 5096 | Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 3054 | Heraclitus said fire could be transformed to create the other lower elements [Heraclitus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
| 9659 | Causation is when at the closest world without the cause, there is no effect either [Lewis] |
| 12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 9666 | It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis] |
| 420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
| 1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 15659 | Purifying yourself with blood is as crazy as using mud to wash off mud [Heraclitus] |
| 1501 | In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus] |