61 ideas
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| 4643 | The Principle of Sufficient Reason does not presuppose that all explanations will be causal explanations [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4633 | You cannot rationally deny the principle of non-contradiction, because all reasoning requires it [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4635 | Dialectic aims at unified truth, unlike analysis, which divides into parts [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4631 | In ideal circumstances, an axiom should be such that no rational agent could possibly object to its use [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4632 | 'Natural' systems of deduction are based on normal rational practice, rather than on axioms [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4638 | The principle of bivalence distorts reality, as when claiming that a person is or is not 'thin' [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 11115 | 'All horses' either picks out the horses, or the things which are horses [Jubien] |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| 11116 | Being a physical object is our most fundamental category [Jubien] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| 11117 | Haecceities implausibly have no qualities [Jubien] |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| 4640 | If identity is based on 'true of X' instead of 'property of X' we get the Masked Man fallacy ('I know X but not Y') [Baggini /Fosl, by PG] |
| 4647 | 'I have the same car as you' is fine; 'I have the same fiancée as you' is not so good [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| 4639 | Leibniz's Law is about the properties of objects; the Identity of Indiscernibles is about perception of objects [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| 4646 | Is 'events have causes' analytic a priori, synthetic a posteriori, or synthetic a priori? [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 11119 | De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences [Jubien] |
| 11118 | Modal propositions transcend the concrete, but not the actual [Jubien] |
| 11108 | Your properties, not some other world, decide your possibilities [Jubien] |
| 11111 | Modal truths are facts about parts of this world, not about remote maximal entities [Jubien] |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| 11109 | If other worlds exist, then they are scattered parts of the actual world [Jubien] |
| 11106 | If all possible worlds just happened to include stars, their existence would be necessary [Jubien] |
| 11112 | Possible worlds just give parallel contingencies, with no explanation at all of necessity [Jubien] |
| 11113 | Worlds don't explain necessity; we use necessity to decide on possible worlds [Jubien] |
| 11105 | We have no idea how many 'possible worlds' there might be [Jubien] |
| 11107 | If there are no other possible worlds, do we then exist necessarily? [Jubien] |
| 11110 | We mustn't confuse a similar person with the same person [Jubien] |
| 4645 | 'A priori' does not concern how you learn a proposition, but how you show whether it is true or false [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4582 | Basic beliefs are self-evident, or sensual, or intuitive, or revealed, or guaranteed [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 4644 | A proposition such as 'some swans are purple' cannot be falsified, only verified [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4584 | The problem of induction is how to justify our belief in the uniformity of nature [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4583 | How can an argument be good induction, but poor deduction? [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4634 | Abduction aims at simplicity, testability, coherence and comprehensiveness [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4637 | To see if an explanation is the best, it is necessary to investigate the alternative explanations [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 4629 | Consistency is the cornerstone of rationality [Baggini /Fosl] |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |