58 ideas
| 5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
| 12667 | Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis] |
| 5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
| 12666 | We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis] |
| 12688 | Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis] |
| 12683 | Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12670 | A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis] |
| 12673 | Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis] |
| 12665 | I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis] |
| 12682 | Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis] |
| 12684 | Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis] |
| 12672 | Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis] |
| 12676 | Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis] |
| 23781 | Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE] |
| 12686 | Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis] |
| 12685 | Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis] |
| 12679 | A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis] |
| 12668 | Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis] |
| 12687 | Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis] |
| 19682 | Internalists are much more interested in evidence than externalists are [McGrew] |
| 19684 | Does spotting a new possibility count as evidence? [McGrew] |
| 19687 | Absence of evidence proves nothing, and weird claims need special evidence [McGrew] |
| 19688 | Every event is highly unlikely (in detail), but may be perfectly plausible [McGrew] |
| 19686 | Criminal law needs two separate witnesses, but historians will accept one witness [McGrew] |
| 19680 | Maybe all evidence consists of beliefs, rather than of facts [McGrew] |
| 19681 | If all evidence is propositional, what is the evidence for the proposition? Do we face a regress? [McGrew] |
| 19689 | Several unreliable witnesses can give good support, if they all say the same thing [McGrew] |
| 19683 | Narrow evidentialism relies wholly on propositions; the wider form includes other items [McGrew] |
| 5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
| 19685 | Falsificationism would be naive if even a slight discrepancy in evidence killed a theory [McGrew] |
| 12669 | Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis] |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| 5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
| 5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| 5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
| 5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
| 5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
| 12681 | There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12680 | Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis] |
| 12675 | Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis] |
| 12671 | I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis] |
| 12674 | Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis] |
| 12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 12690 | The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |