57 ideas
| 15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
| 15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
| 4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
| 15007 | If you make 'grounding' fundamental, you have to mention some non-fundamental notions [Sider on Fine,K] |
| 15006 | Something is grounded when it holds, and is explained, and necessitated by something else [Fine,K, by Sider] |
| 15055 | Grounding relations are best expressed as relations between sentences [Fine,K] |
| 15050 | Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form [Fine,K] |
| 15051 | Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction [Fine,K] |
| 15052 | Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence [Fine,K] |
| 15056 | The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced [Fine,K] |
| 4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
| 15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
| 15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
| 15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
| 15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
| 4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
| 4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
| 4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
| 4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
| 4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
| 4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
| 4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
| 4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
| 4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
| 15061 | Although colour depends on us, we can describe the world that way if it picks out fundamentals [Fine,K] |
| 15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
| 15057 | Ultimate explanations are in 'grounds', which account for other truths, which hold in virtue of the grounding [Fine,K] |
| 4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
| 4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
| 4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
| 4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
| 4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
| 4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
| 4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
| 4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
| 4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
| 4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
| 4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| 4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
| 4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
| 4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
| 4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
| 4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
| 4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
| 4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
| 4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
| 4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
| 4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
| 4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
| 4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
| 4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
| 15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
| 21093 | Friendship without community spirit misses out on the main part of virtue [Hume] |
| 21091 | It would be absurd if even a free constitution did not impose restraints, for the public good [Hume] |
| 21092 | Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume] |