27 ideas
| 15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
| 15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
| 15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
| 15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
| 15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
| 15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
| 15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
| 15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
| 15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
| 15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
| 15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
| 15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
| 15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
| 7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
| 15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
| 7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
| 23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
| 7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
| 7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
| 7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
| 15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
| 7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
| 15314 | Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden] |
| 7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
| 7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |