100 ideas
| 18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
| 18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
| 18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
| 18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
| 21761 | If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21764 | Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality... [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21769 | We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being [Hegel] |
| 13395 | If an analysis shows the features of a concept, it doesn't seem to 'reduce' the concept [Jubien] |
| 22037 | Objectivity is not by correspondence, but by the historical determined necessity of Geist [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 21983 | Being and nothing are the same and not the same, which is the identity of identity and non-identity [Hegel] |
| 21985 | The so-called world is filled with contradiction [Hegel] |
| 21766 | Dialectic is the instability of thoughts generating their opposite, and then new more complex thoughts [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21978 | Hegel's dialectic is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but usually negation of negation of the negation [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
| 18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
| 13378 | It is a mistake to think that the logic developed for mathematics can clarify language and philosophy [Jubien] |
| 13402 | We only grasp a name if we know whether to apply it when the bearer changes [Jubien] |
| 13405 | The baptiser picks the bearer of a name, but social use decides the category [Jubien] |
| 13399 | Examples show that ordinary proper names are not rigid designators [Jubien] |
| 13398 | We could make a contingent description into a rigid and necessary one by adding 'actual' to it [Jubien] |
| 13392 | Philosophers reduce complex English kind-quantifiers to the simplistic first-order quantifier [Jubien] |
| 18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
| 18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
| 21762 | To grasp an existence, we must consider its non-existence [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21977 | Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible [Hegel] |
| 21760 | Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 13404 | To exist necessarily is to have an essence whose own essence must be instantiated [Jubien] |
| 21765 | The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
| 13386 | If objects are just conventional, there is no ontological distinction between stuff and things [Jubien] |
| 22059 | Kant's thing-in-itself is just an abstraction from our knowledge; things only exist for us [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 22083 | Hegel believe that the genuine categories reveal things in themselves [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
| 18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
| 13403 | The category of Venus is not 'object', or even 'planet', but a particular class of good-sized object [Jubien] |
| 18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
| 18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
| 22080 | The nature of each category relates itself to another [Hegel] |
| 18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
| 18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
| 18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
| 18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
| 18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
| 18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
| 18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
| 18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
| 18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| 13375 | The idea that every entity must have identity conditions is an unfortunate misunderstanding [Jubien] |
| 13393 | Any entity has the unique property of being that specific entity [Jubien] |
| 13388 | It is incoherent to think that a given entity depends on its kind for its existence [Jubien] |
| 13384 | Objects need conventions for their matter, their temporal possibility, and their spatial possibility [Jubien] |
| 13385 | Basically, the world doesn't have ready-made 'objects'; we carve objects any way we like [Jubien] |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| 13383 | If the statue is loved and the clay hated, that is about the object first qua statue, then qua clay [Jubien] |
| 13400 | If one entity is an object, a statue, and some clay, these come apart in at least three ways [Jubien] |
| 13401 | The idea of coincident objects is a last resort, as it is opposed to commonsense naturalism [Jubien] |
| 18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
| 13380 | Parts seem to matter when it is just an object, but not matter when it is a kind of object [Jubien] |
| 18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
| 18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
| 18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
| 13376 | We should not regard essentialism as just nontrivial de re necessity [Jubien] |
| 13381 | Thinking of them as 'ships' the repaired ship is the original, but as 'objects' the reassembly is the original [Jubien] |
| 13382 | Rearranging the planks as a ship is confusing; we'd say it was the same 'object' with a different arrangement [Jubien] |
| 13379 | If two objects are indiscernible across spacetime, how could we decide whether or not they are the same? [Jubien] |
| 13394 | Entailment does not result from mutual necessity; mutual necessity ensures entailment [Jubien] |
| 13391 | Modality concerns relations among platonic properties [Jubien] |
| 13374 | To analyse modality, we must give accounts of objects, properties and relations [Jubien] |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| 13389 | The love of possible worlds is part of the dream that technical logic solves philosophical problems [Jubien] |
| 13390 | Possible worlds don't explain necessity, because they are a bunch of parallel contingencies [Jubien] |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| 21772 | In absolute knowing, the gap between object and oneself closes, producing certainty [Hegel] |
| 20954 | The 'absolute idea' is when all the contradictions are exhausted [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 21972 | Hegel, unlike Kant, said how things appear is the same as how things are [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 22038 | Hegel's non-subjective idealism is the unity of subjective and objective viewpoints [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 22044 | Hegel claimed his system was about the world, but it only mapped conceptual interdependence [Pinkard on Hegel] |
| 21464 | The Absolute is the primitive system of concepts which are actualised [Hegel, by Gardner] |
| 22084 | Authentic thinking and reality have the same content [Hegel] |
| 21975 | The absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and all truth [Hegel] |
| 21976 | The absolute idea is the great unity of the infinite system of concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 22058 | Hegel's 'absolute idea' is the interdependence of all truths to justify any of them [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
| 18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
| 13396 | Analysing mental concepts points to 'inclusionism' - that mental phenomena are part of the physical [Jubien] |
| 18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
| 18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
| 18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
| 20953 | Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 13377 | First-order logic tilts in favour of the direct reference theory, in its use of constants for objects [Jubien] |
| 18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
| 21763 | When we explicate the category of being, we watch a new category emerge [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
| 18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |