85 ideas
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| 14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
| 14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
| 15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| 17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| 15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
| 14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
| 14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
| 15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
| 15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
| 15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
| 15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
| 15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| 15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
| 15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
| 15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| 15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
| 14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
| 17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
| 17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
| 14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
| 12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| 17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
| 17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
| 17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
| 17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
| 17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
| 17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
| 17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| 15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| 17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
| 17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| 15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| 14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
| 14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
| 17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
| 17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
| 17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
| 14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
| 14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
| 17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
| 14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| 17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
| 17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
| 17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| 17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| 17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
| 17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
| 17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
| 17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
| 8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
| 16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
| 9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| 14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| 15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
| 6011 | There is a remote first god (the Good), and a second god who organises the material world [Numenius, by O'Meara] |