135 ideas
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| 14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
| 10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
| 22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
| 17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
| 17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
| 3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
| 17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
| 3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
| 22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
| 17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
| 22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
| 17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
| 22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
| 22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
| 17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
| 22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
| 8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| 17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
| 14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
| 14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
| 17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
| 17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
| 17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
| 17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
| 17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
| 17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
| 17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
| 14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
| 17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
| 17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
| 17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
| 22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
| 22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
| 17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
| 17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
| 3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
| 17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
| 22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
| 22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
| 17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
| 17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
| 17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
| 3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
| 3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
| 3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
| 3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
| 3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
| 3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
| 3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
| 3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
| 3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
| 3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
| 3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
| 3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
| 3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
| 3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
| 3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
| 3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
| 3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
| 3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
| 3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
| 3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
| 3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
| 3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
| 3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
| 3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
| 3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
| 3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
| 3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
| 3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
| 3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
| 3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
| 3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
| 3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
| 3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
| 3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
| 3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
| 3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
| 3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
| 3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
| 3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
| 3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
| 3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
| 3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
| 3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
| 3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
| 3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
| 3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
| 3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
| 3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
| 3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
| 3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
| 3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
| 3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
| 3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
| 3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
| 3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
| 3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
| 3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
| 22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
| 22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
| 22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
| 22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
| 22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
| 22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
| 22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
| 22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
| 22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
| 22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
| 22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
| 22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
| 17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
| 22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
| 17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
| 17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
| 17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
| 17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
| 17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
| 17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
| 17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
| 17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
| 17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
| 17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
| 17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
| 17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |