25 ideas
12463 | Unlike correspondence, truthmaking can be one truth to many truthmakers, or vice versa [Jacobs] |
18270 | Choice suggests that intensions are not needed to ensure classes [Coffa] |
21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
14375 | If structures result from intrinsic natures of properties, the 'relations' between them can drop out [Jacobs] |
14378 | Science aims at identifying the structure and nature of the powers that exist [Jacobs] |
12467 | Powers come from concrete particulars, not from the laws of nature [Jacobs] |
18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
14377 | Possibilities are manifestations of some power, and impossibilies rest on no powers [Jacobs] |
14376 | States of affairs are only possible if some substance could initiate a causal chain to get there [Jacobs] |
14379 | Counterfactuals invite us to consider the powers picked out by the antecedent [Jacobs] |
14372 | Possible worlds are just not suitable truthmakers for modality [Jacobs] |
12466 | All modality is in the properties and relations of the actual world [Jacobs] |
14371 | We can base counterfactuals on powers, not possible worlds, and hence define necessity [Jacobs] |
12465 | Concrete worlds, unlike fictions, at least offer evidence of how the actual world could be [Jacobs] |
12464 | If some book described a possibe life for you, that isn't what makes such a life possible [Jacobs] |
12469 | Possible worlds semantics gives little insight into modality [Jacobs] |
18263 | The semantic tradition aimed to explain the a priori semantically, not by Kantian intuition [Coffa] |
18272 | Platonism defines the a priori in a way that makes it unknowable [Coffa] |
1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
18266 | Mathematics generalises by using variables [Coffa] |
8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
18279 | Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space [Coffa] |