80 ideas
16227 | Philosophers are good at denying the obvious [Hawley] |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
14620 | Theories in logic are sentences closed under consequence, but in truth discussions theories have axioms [Fine,K] |
16216 | Part of the sense of a proper name is a criterion of the thing's identity [Hawley] |
16211 | A homogeneous rotating disc should be undetectable according to Humean supervenience [Hawley] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
16219 | Non-linguistic things cannot be indeterminate, because they don't have truth-values at all [Hawley] |
16223 | Maybe for the world to be vague, it must be vague in its foundations? [Hawley] |
16226 | Epistemic vagueness seems right in the case of persons [Hawley] |
16208 | Supervaluation refers to one vaguely specified thing, through satisfaction by everything in some range [Hawley] |
16221 | Supervaluationism takes what the truth-value would have been if indecision was resolved [Hawley] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
16230 | Maybe the only properties are basic ones like charge, mass and spin [Hawley] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
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] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
16232 | An object is 'natural' if its stages are linked by certain non-supervenient relations [Hawley] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
16200 | Are sortals spatially maximal - so no cat part is allowed to be a cat? [Hawley] |
16237 | The modal features of statue and lump are disputed; when does it stop being that statue? [Hawley] |
16238 | Perdurantists can adopt counterpart theory, to explain modal differences of identical part-sums [Hawley] |
16220 | Vagueness is either in our knowledge, in our talk, or in reality [Hawley] |
16222 | Indeterminacy in objects and in properties are not distinct cases [Hawley] |
16228 | The constitution theory is endurantism plus more than one object in a place [Hawley] |
16229 | Constitution theory needs sortal properties like 'being a sweater' to distinguish it from its thread [Hawley] |
14492 | If the constitution view says thread and sweater are two things, why do we talk of one thing? [Hawley] |
16193 | 'Adverbialism' explains change by saying an object has-at-some-time a given property [Hawley] |
16195 | Presentism solves the change problem: the green banana ceases, so can't 'relate' to the yellow one [Hawley] |
16202 | The problem of change arises if there must be 'identity' of a thing over time [Hawley] |
16192 | Endurance theory can relate properties to times, or timed instantiations to properties [Hawley] |
16196 | Endurance is a sophisticated theory, covering properties, instantiation and time [Hawley] |
16197 | How does perdurance theory explain our concern for our own future selves? [Hawley] |
16191 | Perdurance needs an atemporal perspective, to say that the object 'has' different temporal parts [Hawley] |
16199 | If an object is the sum of all of its temporal parts, its mass is staggeringly large! [Hawley] |
16201 | Perdurance says things are sums of stages; Stage Theory says each stage is the thing [Hawley] |
16240 | If a life is essentially the sum of its temporal parts, it couldn't be shorter or longer than it was? [Hawley] |
16203 | Stage Theory seems to miss out the link between stages of the same object [Hawley] |
16204 | Stage Theory says every stage is a distinct object, which gives too many objects [Hawley] |
16212 | An isolated stage can't be a banana (which involves suitable relations to other stages) [Hawley] |
16213 | Stages of one thing are related by extrinsic counterfactual and causal relations [Hawley] |
16206 | Stages must be as fine-grained in length as change itself, so any change is a new stage [Hawley] |
16205 | The stages of Stage Theory seem too thin to populate the world, or to be referred to [Hawley] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
16225 | If two things might be identical, there can't be something true of one and false of the other [Hawley] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
14530 | The role of semantic necessity in semantics is like metaphysical necessity in metaphysics [Fine,K, by Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
16239 | To decide whether something is a counterpart, we need to specify a relevant sortal concept [Hawley] |
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] |
16218 | On any theory of self, it is hard to explain why we should care about our future selves [Hawley] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
14618 | Semantics is either an assignment of semantic values, or a theory of truth [Fine,K] |
14621 | Semantics is a body of semantic requirements, not semantic truths or assigned values [Fine,K] |
14622 | Referential semantics (unlike Fregeanism) allows objects themselves in to semantic requirements [Fine,K] |
14619 | The Quinean doubt: are semantics and facts separate, and do analytic sentences have no factual part? [Fine,K] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
16215 | Causation is nothing more than the counterfactuals it grounds? [Hawley] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [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] |
16207 | Time could be discrete (like integers) or dense (rationals) or continuous (reals) [Hawley] |