60 ideas
5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
17518 | Counting 'coin in this box' may have coin as the unit, with 'in this box' merely as the scope [Ayers] |
17516 | If counting needs a sortal, what of things which fall under two sortals? [Ayers] |
16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
3942 | I do not believe in the existence of anything, if I see no reason to believe it [Berkeley] |
16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
3952 | I know that nothing inconsistent can exist [Berkeley] |
17520 | Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers] |
16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
17519 | To express borderline cases of objects, you need the concept of an 'object' [Ayers] |
17510 | Speakers need the very general category of a thing, if they are to think about it [Ayers] |
17522 | We use sortals to classify physical objects by the nature and origin of their unity [Ayers] |
17515 | Seeing caterpillar and moth as the same needs continuity, not identity of sortal concepts [Ayers] |
17511 | Recognising continuity is separate from sortals, and must precede their use [Ayers] |
17517 | Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers] |
3959 | There is no other substance, in a strict sense, than spirit [Berkeley] |
17513 | If there are two objects, then 'that marble, man-shaped object' is ambiguous [Ayers] |
17523 | Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers] |
17521 | You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers] |
17514 | Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers] |
17509 | Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers] |
17512 | If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers] |
3946 | A thing is shown to be impossible if a contradiction is demonstrated within its definition [Berkeley] |
3958 | Since our ideas vary when the real things are said to be unchanged, they cannot be true copies [Berkeley] |
3943 | If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley] |
3931 | Sensible objects are just sets of sensible qualities [Berkeley] |
5192 | Berkeley did not deny material things; he merely said they must be defined through sensations [Berkeley, by Ayer] |
5174 | Berkeley needed a phenomenalist account of the self, as well as of material things [Ayer on Berkeley] |
1103 | 'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley] |
6403 | For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling] |
3936 | Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley] |
3930 | There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley] |
3939 | I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley] |
3945 | There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley] |
3947 | Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley] |
3933 | Primary qualities (such as shape, solidity, mass) are held to really exist, unlike secondary qualities [Berkeley] |
3934 | A mite would see its own foot as large, though we would see it as tiny [Berkeley] |
3935 | The apparent size of an object varies with its distance away, so that can't be a property of the object [Berkeley] |
3937 | 'Solidity' is either not a sensible quality at all, or it is clearly relative to our senses [Berkeley] |
3940 | Distance is not directly perceived by sight [Berkeley] |
3957 | Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves [Berkeley] |
3953 | Real things and imaginary or dreamed things differ because the latter are much fainter [Berkeley] |
3938 | Geometry is originally perceived by senses, and so is not purely intellectual [Berkeley] |
3944 | It is possible that we could perceive everything as we do now, but nothing actually existed. [Berkeley] |
3932 | A hot hand and a cold hand will have different experiences in the same tepid water [Berkeley] |
3948 | Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley] |
3941 | How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley] |
5374 | Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley] |
3954 | Immorality is not in the action, but in the deviation of the will from moral law [Berkeley] |
3950 | There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley] |
3951 | There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley] |
3949 | It has been proved that creation is the workmanship of God, from its beauty and usefulness [Berkeley] |
3956 | People are responsible because they have limited power, though this ultimately derives from God [Berkeley] |
3955 | If sin is not just physical, we don't consider God the origin of sin because he causes physical events [Berkeley] |