45 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] |
17867 | If a concept is not compact, it will not be presentable to finite minds [Almog] |
17877 | The number series is primitive, not the result of some set theoretic axioms [Almog] |
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] |
15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
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] |
8780 | Attributes are functions, not objects; this distinguishes 'square of 2' from 'double of 2' [Geach] |
17871 | Fregean meanings are analogous to conceptual essence, defining a kind [Almog] |
17866 | Essential definition aims at existence conditions and structural truths [Almog] |
17868 | Surface accounts aren't exhaustive as they always allow unintended twin cases [Almog] |
17872 | Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes [Almog] |
17870 | Alien 'tigers' can't be tigers if they are not related to our tigers [Almog] |
17869 | Kripke and Putnam offer an intermediary between real and nominal essences [Almog] |
17876 | Individual essences are just cobbled together classificatory predicates [Almog] |
11910 | Being 'the same' is meaningless, unless we specify 'the same X' [Geach] |
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] |
8775 | A big flea is a small animal, so 'big' and 'small' cannot be acquired by abstraction [Geach] |
8776 | We cannot learn relations by abstraction, because their converse must be learned too [Geach] |
2567 | You can't define real mental states in terms of behaviour that never happens [Geach] |
2568 | Beliefs aren't tied to particular behaviours [Geach] |
17873 | Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers [Almog] |
8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
8769 | If someone has aphasia but can still play chess, they clearly have concepts [Geach] |
8770 | 'Abstractionism' is acquiring a concept by picking out one experience amongst a group [Geach] |
8771 | 'Or' and 'not' are not to be found in the sensible world, or even in the world of inner experience [Geach] |
8772 | We can't acquire number-concepts by extracting the number from the things being counted [Geach] |
8773 | Abstractionists can't explain counting, because it must precede experience of objects [Geach] |
8774 | The numbers don't exist in nature, so they cannot have been abstracted from there into our languages [Geach] |
8778 | Blind people can use colour words like 'red' perfectly intelligently [Geach] |
8777 | If 'black' and 'cat' can be used in the absence of such objects, how can such usage be abstracted? [Geach] |
8779 | We can form two different abstract concepts that apply to a single unified experience [Geach] |
15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
17864 | Defining an essence comes no where near giving a thing's nature [Almog] |
17863 | Essences promise to reveal reality, but actually drive us away from it [Almog] |