41 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] |
5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
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] |
16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
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] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
2590 | Dispositions need mental terms to define them [Putnam] |
2591 | Total paralysis would mean that there were mental states but no behaviour at all [Putnam] |
2592 | Functional states correlate with AND explain pain behaviour [Putnam] |
2589 | Functionalism is compatible with dualism, as pure mind could perform the functions [Putnam] |
2588 | Is pain a functional state of a complete organism? [Putnam] |
2587 | Temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy, but they are two different concepts [Putnam] |
6376 | Neuroscience does not support multiple realisability, and tends to support identity [Polger on Putnam] |
2330 | If humans and molluscs both feel pain, it can't be a single biological state [Putnam, by Kim] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [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] |