47 ideas
| 9449 | The plausible Barcan formula implies modality in the actual world [Bird] |
| 9501 | If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird] |
| 15200 | How could change consist of a conjunction of changeless facts? [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 14761 | Change is not just having two different qualities at different points in some series [McTaggart] |
| 9500 | If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird] |
| 9502 | There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird] |
| 9477 | Categorical properties are not modally fixed, but change across possible worlds [Bird] |
| 9490 | The categoricalist idea is that a property is only individuated by being itself [Bird] |
| 9495 | If we abstractly define a property, that doesn't mean some object could possess it [Bird] |
| 9492 | Categoricalists take properties to be quiddities, with no essential difference between them [Bird] |
| 9503 | To name an abundant property is either a Fregean concept, or a simple predicate [Bird] |
| 14540 | Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 9450 | If all properties are potencies, and stimuli and manifestation characterise them, there is a regress [Bird] |
| 9498 | The essence of a potency involves relations, e.g. mass, to impressed force and acceleration [Bird] |
| 9474 | A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird] |
| 9475 | A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird] |
| 9499 | Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird] |
| 9486 | Why should a universal's existence depend on instantiation in an existing particular? [Bird] |
| 9472 | Resemblance itself needs explanation, presumably in terms of something held in common [Bird] |
| 9482 | If the laws necessarily imply p, that doesn't give a new 'nomological' necessity [Bird] |
| 9481 | Logical necessitation is not a kind of necessity; George Orwell not being Eric Blair is not a real possibility [Bird] |
| 9505 | Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird] |
| 18383 | Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong] |
| 11891 | Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P] |
| 9491 | Haecceitism says identity is independent of qualities and without essence [Bird] |
| 9487 | We can't reject all explanations because of a regress; inexplicable A can still explain B [Bird] |
| 9493 | We should explain causation by powers, not powers by causation [Bird] |
| 9494 | Singularism about causes is wrong, as the universals involved imply laws [Bird] |
| 9507 | Laws are explanatory relationships of things, which supervene on their essences [Bird] |
| 9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |
| 9496 | That other diamonds are hard does not explain why this one is [Bird] |
| 9479 | Dispositional essentialism says laws (and laws about laws) are guaranteed regularities [Bird] |
| 9473 | Laws cannot offer unified explanations if they don't involve universals [Bird] |
| 9484 | If the universals for laws must be instantiated, a vanishing particular could destroy a law [Bird] |
| 9506 | Salt necessarily dissolves in water, because of the law which makes the existence of salt possible [Bird] |
| 23713 | Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers [Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 9489 | Essentialism can't use conditionals to explain regularities, because of possible interventions [Bird] |
| 2608 | For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events [McTaggart, by Ayer] |
| 9504 | The relational view of space-time doesn't cover times and places where things could be [Bird] |
| 22936 | A-series time positions are contradictory, and yet all events occupy all of them! [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 4231 | Time involves change, only the A-series explains change, but it involves contradictions, so time is unreal [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| 8591 | There could be no time if nothing changed [McTaggart] |
| 22935 | The B-series can be inferred from the A-series, but not the other way round [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 7802 | A-series uses past, present and future; B-series uses 'before' and 'after' [McTaggart, by Girle] |
| 4230 | A-series expressions place things in time, and their truth varies; B-series is relative, and always true [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| 15199 | The B-series must depend on the A-series, because change must be explained [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 20704 | A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B] |