93 ideas
7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
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] |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
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] |
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] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
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] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
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] |
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] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
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] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
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] |
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] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |