29 ideas
| 9550 | We only know relational facts about the empty set, but nothing intrinsic [Chihara] |
| 9562 | In simple type theory there is a hierarchy of null sets [Chihara] |
| 9572 | Realists about sets say there exists a null set in the real world, with no members [Chihara] |
| 9573 | The null set is a structural position which has no other position in membership relation [Chihara] |
| 9551 | What is special about Bill Clinton's unit set, in comparison with all the others? [Chihara] |
| 9549 | The set theorist cannot tell us what 'membership' is [Chihara] |
| 9571 | ZFU refers to the physical world, when it talks of 'urelements' [Chihara] |
| 9563 | A pack of wolves doesn't cease when one member dies [Chihara] |
| 9561 | The mathematics of relations is entirely covered by ordered pairs [Chihara] |
| 9552 | Sentences are consistent if they can all be true; for Frege it is that no contradiction can be deduced [Chihara] |
| 9553 | Analytic geometry gave space a mathematical structure, which could then have axioms [Chihara] |
| 10192 | We can replace existence of sets with possibility of constructing token sentences [Chihara, by MacBride] |
| 9559 | If a successful theory confirms mathematics, presumably a failed theory disconfirms it? [Chihara] |
| 9566 | No scientific explanation would collapse if mathematical objects were shown not to exist [Chihara] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 14189 | 'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA] |
| 9568 | I prefer the open sentences of a Constructibility Theory, to Platonist ideas of 'equivalence classes' [Chihara] |
| 9547 | Mathematical entities are causally inert, so the causal theory of reference won't work for them [Chihara] |
| 4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
| 4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
| 4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
| 9574 | 'Gunk' is an individual possessing no parts that are atoms [Chihara] |