75 ideas
| 14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 2730 | Because 'gold is malleable' is necessary does not mean that it is analytic [Audi,R] |
| 14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 2715 | Beliefs are based on perception, memory, introspection or reason [Audi,R] |
| 2735 | Could you have a single belief on its own? [Audi,R] |
| 2736 | We can make certain of what we know, so knowing does not entail certainty [Audi,R] |
| 2722 | Sense-data theory is indirect realism, but phenomenalism is direct irrealism [Audi,R] |
| 2721 | If you gradually remove a book's sensory properties, what is left at the end? [Audi,R] |
| 2727 | Red and green being exclusive colours seems to be rationally graspable but not analytic [Audi,R] |
| 2728 | The concepts needed for a priori thought may come from experience [Audi,R] |
| 14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 2717 | How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? [Audi,R] |
| 2716 | To see something as a field, I obviously need the concept of a field [Audi,R] |
| 2719 | Sense data imply representative realism, possibly only representing primary qualities [Audi,R] |
| 2720 | Sense-data (and the rival 'adverbial' theory) are to explain illusions and hallucinations [Audi,R] |
| 2718 | Perception is first simple, then objectual (with concepts) and then propositional [Audi,R] |
| 2729 | Virtually all rationalists assert that we can have knowledge of synthetic a priori truths [Audi,R] |
| 2741 | The principles of justification have to be a priori [Audi,R] |
| 2725 | To remember something is to know it [Audi,R] |
| 2724 | I might remember someone I can't recall or image, by recognising them on meeting [Audi,R] |
| 2731 | Justification is either unanchored (infinite or circular), or anchored (in knowledge or non-knowledge) [Audi,R] |
| 2739 | Internalism about justification implies that there is a right to believe something [Audi,R] |
| 2732 | Maths may be consistent with observations, but not coherent [Audi,R] |
| 2733 | It is very hard to show how much coherence is needed for justification [Audi,R] |
| 2734 | A consistent madman could have a very coherent belief system [Audi,R] |
| 2738 | Consistent accurate prediction looks like knowledge without justified belief [Audi,R] |
| 2740 | A reliability theory of knowledge seems to involve truth as correspondence [Audi,R] |
| 2737 | 'Reliable' is a very imprecise term, and may even mean 'justified' [Audi,R] |
| 14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 2726 | We can be ignorant about ourselves, for example, our desires and motives [Audi,R] |
| 14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 21991 | The middle class gain freedom through property, but workers can only free all of humanity [Marx, by Singer] |
| 21990 | Theory is as much a part of a revolution as material force is [Marx] |
| 14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |
| 7128 | Religion is the opium of the people, and real happiness requires its abolition [Marx] |