84 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] |
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| 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] |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| 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] |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| 18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| 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] |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| 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] |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| 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] |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| 18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| 18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| 18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
| 18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
| 18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 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] |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| 18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| 18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |