Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mechanisms', 'The Logic of What Might Have Been' and 'Letters to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle'

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42 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 2. Tools of Modal Logic / b. Terminology of ML
14684 A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / d. System T
14669 For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / f. System B
14667 System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N]
14668 In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N]
14692 System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / g. System S4
14671 What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
14686 S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N]
14691 S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N]
14693 The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
14670 Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
14678 Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
14680 Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
14690 In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N]
14677 Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N]
14679 Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N]
14688 Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N]
14685 Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
14681 Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
14676 Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
14689 Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / b. Impossible worlds
14674 Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N]
14682 Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N]
14687 Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
14683 Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
14672 Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N]
14675 Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / c. Worlds as propositions
14673 You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
16529 Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16530 A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16528 Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
2384 Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes]
2385 If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]