71 ideas
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 10354 | Correspondence could be with other beliefs, rather than external facts [Kusch] |
| 10353 | Tarskians distinguish truth from falsehood by relations between members of sets [Kusch] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 16616 | Substances 'substand' (beneath accidents), or 'subsist' (independently) [Eustachius] |
| 16585 | Prime matter is free of all forms, but has the potential for all forms [Eustachius] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 10337 | We can have knowledge without belief, if others credit us with knowledge [Kusch] |
| 10357 | Methodological Solipsism assumes all ideas could be derived from one mind [Kusch] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 10339 | Foundations seem utterly private, even from oneself at a later time [Kusch] |
| 10331 | Testimony is reliable if it coheres with evidence for a belief, and with other beliefs [Kusch] |
| 10338 | The coherentist restricts the space of reasons to the realm of beliefs [Kusch] |
| 10340 | Individualistic coherentism lacks access to all of my beliefs, or critical judgement of my assessment [Kusch] |
| 10345 | Individual coherentism cannot generate the necessary normativity [Kusch] |
| 10350 | Cultures decide causal routes, and they can be critically assessed [Kusch] |
| 10343 | Process reliabilism has been called 'virtue epistemology', resting on perception, memory, reason [Kusch] |
| 10341 | Justification depends on the audience and one's social role [Kusch] |
| 10325 | Vindicating testimony is an expression of individualism [Kusch] |
| 10324 | Testimony does not just transmit knowledge between individuals - it actually generates knowledge [Kusch] |
| 10327 | Some want to reduce testimony to foundations of perceptions, memories and inferences [Kusch] |
| 10329 | Testimony won't reduce to perception, if perception depends on social concepts and categories [Kusch] |
| 10330 | A foundation is what is intelligible, hence from a rational source, and tending towards truth [Kusch] |
| 10334 | Testimony is an area in which epistemology meets ethics [Kusch] |
| 10336 | Powerless people are assumed to be unreliable, even about their own lives [Kusch] |
| 10323 | Communitarian Epistemology says 'knowledge' is a social status granted to groups of people [Kusch] |
| 10348 | Private justification is justification to imagined other people [Kusch] |
| 10335 | Myths about lonely genius are based on epistemological individualism [Kusch] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 10349 | To be considered 'an individual' is performed by a society [Kusch] |
| 10344 | Our experience may be conceptual, but surely not the world itself? [Kusch] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 10358 | Often socialising people is the only way to persuade them [Kusch] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 10333 | Communitarianism in epistemology sees the community as the primary knower [Kusch] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 10351 | Natural kinds are social institutions [Kusch] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 10332 | Omniscience is incoherent, since knowledge is a social concept [Kusch] |