44 ideas
13734 | Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J] |
13751 | If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J] |
15169 | Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle] |
13743 | We should not multiply basic entities, but we can have as many derivative entities as we like [Schaffer,J] |
15164 | We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle] |
15091 | Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker] |
13741 | If 'there are red roses' implies 'there are roses', then 'there are prime numbers' implies 'there are numbers' [Schaffer,J] |
13748 | Grounding is unanalysable and primitive, and is the basic structuring concept in metaphysics [Schaffer,J] |
13747 | Supervenience is just modal correlation [Schaffer,J] |
13744 | The cosmos is the only fundamental entity, from which all else exists by abstraction [Schaffer,J] |
13739 | Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J] |
15095 | A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker] |
15097 | I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
15094 | I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker] |
15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
13742 | There exist heaps with no integral unity, so we should accept arbitrary composites in the same way [Schaffer,J] |
13752 | The notion of 'grounding' can explain integrated wholes in a way that mere aggregates can't [Schaffer,J] |
15184 | Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle] |
15172 | Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle] |
15181 | Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle] |
15173 | That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle] |
15185 | We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle] |
15175 | Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle] |
15099 | If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker] |
15032 | Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority [Sidelle, by Sider] |
15179 | To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary [Sidelle] |
15101 | Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker] |
15171 | The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle] |
15098 | Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker] |
15100 | Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker] |
15167 | Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle] |
15177 | Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle] |
13749 | Belief in impossible worlds may require dialetheism [Schaffer,J] |
15176 | The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle] |
15174 | A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle] |
15183 | 'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle] |
13740 | 'Moorean certainties' are more credible than any sceptical argument [Schaffer,J] |
15165 | A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle] |
15096 | 'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker] |
15168 | That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water' [Sidelle] |
15166 | Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open [Sidelle] |
15182 | Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle] |
15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
15178 | Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle] |