75 ideas
| 12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
| 21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| 12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
| 12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
| 12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
| 12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
| 13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
| 13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
| 16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
| 16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
| 12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
| 13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
| 14193 | 'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA] |
| 14195 | If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA] |
| 14196 | Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA] |
| 12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
| 14198 | Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would allow things with incompatible properties [Paul,LA] |
| 14190 | Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA] |
| 14191 | Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA] |
| 14192 | Essentialism must deal with charges of arbitrariness, and failure to reduce de re modality [Paul,LA] |
| 14197 | An object's modal properties don't determine its possibilities [Paul,LA] |
| 13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
| 16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
| 16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
| 13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
| 12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
| 14189 | 'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA] |
| 12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
| 12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
| 16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| 12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
| 12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
| 12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
| 12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
| 12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
| 12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| 12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
| 12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
| 12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
| 12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
| 12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
| 12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
| 12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
| 12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
| 12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
| 12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
| 12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
| 12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| 12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
| 12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
| 12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
| 12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
| 13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
| 17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
| 13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
| 16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
| 13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
| 13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
| 13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
| 13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
| 13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
| 16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
| 13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
| 13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |