33 ideas
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
8388 | Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley] |
8389 | Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley] |
8393 | We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley] |
8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
8391 | In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley] |
8394 | Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley] |
8398 | Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |