Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Sophist', 'Intro to the Philosophy of Time' and 'A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev)'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


57 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato]
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato]
Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato]
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 2. Elenchus
In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato]
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 2. Infinite Regress
Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller]
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 7. Paradoxes of Time
A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
To be realists about dispositions, we can only discuss them through their categorical basis [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms
Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato]
The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Armstrong suggests secondary qualities are blurred primary qualities [Armstrong, by Robinson,H]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
A mental state without belief refutes self-intimation; a belief with no state refutes infallibility [Armstrong, by Shoemaker]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 4. Causal Functionalism
If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan]
Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / c. Teaching
Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller]
Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / d. Entropy
There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / f. Eternalism
The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller]
If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller]
Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / i. Denying time
Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / a. Experience of time
For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller]
The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / b. Rate of time
It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series
The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / f. Tenseless (B) series
The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow
Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller]
The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller]
The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller]
Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller]
We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / h. Change in time
Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / j. Time travel
If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller]
Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / k. Temporal truths
The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller]