49 ideas
15169 | Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle] |
15164 | We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle] |
10676 | The Axiom of Choice is a non-logical principle of set-theory [Hossack] |
10686 | The Axiom of Choice guarantees a one-one correspondence from sets to ordinals [Hossack] |
10687 | Maybe we reduce sets to ordinals, rather than the other way round [Hossack] |
10677 | Extensional mereology needs two definitions and two axioms [Hossack] |
10671 | Plural definite descriptions pick out the largest class of things that fit the description [Hossack] |
10666 | Plural reference will refer to complex facts without postulating complex things [Hossack] |
10669 | Plural reference is just an abbreviation when properties are distributive, but not otherwise [Hossack] |
10675 | A plural comprehension principle says there are some things one of which meets some condition [Hossack] |
10673 | Plural language can discuss without inconsistency things that are not members of themselves [Hossack] |
10680 | The theory of the transfinite needs the ordinal numbers [Hossack] |
10684 | I take the real numbers to be just lengths [Hossack] |
10674 | A plural language gives a single comprehensive induction axiom for arithmetic [Hossack] |
10681 | In arithmetic singularists need sets as the instantiator of numeric properties [Hossack] |
10685 | Set theory is the science of infinity [Hossack] |
10668 | We are committed to a 'group' of children, if they are sitting in a circle [Hossack] |
15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
10664 | Complex particulars are either masses, or composites, or sets [Hossack] |
10678 | The relation of composition is indispensable to the part-whole relation for individuals [Hossack] |
10665 | Leibniz's Law argues against atomism - water is wet, unlike water molecules [Hossack] |
10682 | The fusion of five rectangles can decompose into more than five parts that are rectangles [Hossack] |
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] |
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] |
15171 | The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle] |
15167 | Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle] |
15177 | Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle] |
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] |
15165 | A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle] |
10663 | A thought can refer to many things, but only predicate a universal and affirm a state of affairs [Hossack] |
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] |
22687 | Maybe literary assessment is evaluating the artist as a suitable friend [Gaut] |
22686 | Formalists say aesthetics concerns types of beauty, or unity, complexity and intensity [Gaut] |
22690 | 'Moralism' says all aesthetic merits are moral merits [Gaut] |
22684 | Good ethics counts towards aesthetic merit, and bad ethics counts against it [Gaut] |
22689 | If we don't respond ethically in the way a work prescribes, that is an aesthetic failure [Gaut] |
22685 | Good art does not necessarily improve people (any more than good advice does) [Gaut] |
15178 | Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle] |
10683 | We could ignore space, and just talk of the shape of matter [Hossack] |