62 ideas
| 16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
| 9847 | A contextual definition permits the elimination of the expression by a substitution [Dummett] |
| 16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
| 16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
| 9820 | In classical logic, logical truths are valid formulas; in higher-order logics they are purely logical [Dummett] |
| 16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| 9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
| 9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
| 9896 | A prime number is one which is measured by a unit alone [Dummett] |
| 18255 | Addition of quantities is prior to ordering, as shown in cyclic domains like angles [Dummett] |
| 9895 | A number is a multitude composed of units [Dummett] |
| 9852 | We understand 'there are as many nuts as apples' as easily by pairing them as by counting them [Dummett] |
| 9829 | The identity of a number may be fixed by something outside structure - by counting [Dummett] |
| 9828 | Numbers aren't fixed by position in a structure; it won't tell you whether to start with 0 or 1 [Dummett] |
| 9876 | Set theory isn't part of logic, and why reduce to something more complex? [Dummett] |
| 16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
| 16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
| 9884 | The distinction of concrete/abstract, or actual/non-actual, is a scale, not a dichotomy [Dummett] |
| 9869 | Realism is just the application of two-valued semantics to sentences [Dummett] |
| 16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
| 16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
| 9880 | Nominalism assumes unmediated mental contact with objects [Dummett] |
| 9885 | The existence of abstract objects is a pseudo-problem [Dummett] |
| 9858 | Abstract objects nowadays are those which are objective but not actual [Dummett] |
| 9859 | It is absurd to deny the Equator, on the grounds that it lacks causal powers [Dummett] |
| 9860 | 'We've crossed the Equator' has truth-conditions, so accept the Equator - and it's an object [Dummett] |
| 9872 | Abstract objects need the context principle, since they can't be encountered directly [Dummett] |
| 16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
| 9848 | Content is replaceable if identical, so replaceability can't define identity [Dummett, by Dummett] |
| 9842 | Frege introduced criteria for identity, but thought defining identity was circular [Dummett] |
| 16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
| 16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| 16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
| 16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
| 9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| 9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
| 9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
| 16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
| 16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
| 9849 | Maybe a concept is 'prior' to another if it can be defined without the second concept [Dummett] |
| 9850 | An argument for conceptual priority is greater simplicity in explanation [Dummett] |
| 9873 | Abstract terms are acceptable as long as we know how they function linguistically [Dummett] |
| 9993 | There is no reason why abstraction by equivalence classes should be called 'logical' [Dummett, by Tait] |
| 9857 | We arrive at the concept 'suicide' by comparing 'Cato killed Cato' with 'Brutus killed Brutus' [Dummett] |
| 9833 | To abstract from spoons (to get the same number as the forks), the spoons must be indistinguishable too [Dummett] |
| 16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
| 9836 | Fregean semantics assumes a domain articulated into individual objects [Dummett] |
| 16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
| 16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| 18257 | Why should the limit of measurement be points, not intervals? [Dummett] |