69 ideas
13736 | Quinean metaphysics just lists the beings, which is a domain with no internal structure [Schaffer,J on Quine] |
23000 | Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller] |
3302 | Set theory is full of Platonist metaphysics, so Quine aimed to keep it separate from logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
10211 | Quine wants V = L for a cleaner theory, despite the scepticism of most theorists [Quine, by Shapiro] |
3336 | Two things can never entail three things [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
8453 | If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers [Quine] |
10311 | No sense can be made of quantification into opaque contexts [Quine, by Hale] |
10538 | Finite quantification can be eliminated in favour of disjunction and conjunction [Quine, by Dummett] |
10793 | Quine thought substitutional quantification confused use and mention, but then saw its nominalist appeal [Quine, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
8466 | For Quine, intuitionist ontology is inadequate for classical mathematics [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8467 | Intuitionists only admit numbers properly constructed, but classical maths covers all reals in a 'limit' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
8534 | Quine says the predicate of a true statement has no ontological implications [Quine, by Armstrong] |
10295 | Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro] |
3322 | Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
6078 | Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn] |
8479 | Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
3751 | Universals are acceptable if they are needed to make an accepted theory true [Quine, by Jacquette] |
7970 | Quine is committed to sets, but is more a Class Nominalist than a Platonist [Quine, by Macdonald,C] |
15783 | Definite descriptions can't unambiguously pick out an object which doesn't exist [Lycan on Quine] |
23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
15782 | Quine wants identity and individuation-conditions for possibilia [Quine, by Lycan] |
2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
19553 | Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted [Hawthorne] |
8450 | Quine's empiricism is based on whole theoretical systems, not on single mental events [Quine, by Orenstein] |
19551 | How can we know the heavyweight implications of normal knowledge? Must we distort 'knowledge'? [Hawthorne] |
19552 | We wouldn't know the logical implications of our knowledge if small risks added up to big risks [Hawthorne] |
19554 | Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne] |
3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
4713 | For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady] |
4712 | Quine says there is no matter of fact about reference - it is 'inscrutable' [Quine, by O'Grady] |
7330 | The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A] |
23011 | Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller] |
23013 | The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller] |
23014 | If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller] |
23015 | The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller] |
23016 | Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller] |
17862 | Essence gives an illusion of understanding [Quine, by Almog] |
23009 | There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller] |
23002 | In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller] |
22988 | The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller] |
22991 | How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller] |
22992 | If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller] |
22994 | Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller] |
22998 | How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller] |
23017 | Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller] |
23023 | How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller] |
22995 | Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller] |
22993 | For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller] |
23001 | The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller] |
22999 | It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller] |
22986 | The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller] |
22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |
23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |
23003 | Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller] |
23004 | The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller] |
23005 | The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller] |
23006 | Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller] |
23010 | We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller] |
22989 | Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller] |
23020 | If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller] |
23022 | Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller] |
22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |
22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |