119 ideas
12865 | Analytic philosophers may prefer formal systems because natural language is such mess [Simons] |
224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
12815 | Classical mereology doesn't apply well to the objects around us [Simons] |
12819 | A 'part' has different meanings for individuals, classes, and masses [Simons] |
12832 | Complement: the rest of the Universe apart from some individual, written x-bar [Simons] |
12834 | Criticisms of mereology: parts? transitivity? sums? identity? four-dimensional? [Simons] |
12827 | Difference: the difference of individuals is the remainder of an overlap, written 'x - y' [Simons] |
12828 | General sum: the sum of objects satisfying some predicate, written σx(Fx) [Simons] |
12822 | Proper or improper part: x < y, 'x is (a) part of y' [Simons] |
12823 | Overlap: two parts overlap iff they have a part in common, expressed as 'x o y' [Simons] |
12824 | Disjoint: two individuals are disjoint iff they do not overlap, written 'x | y' [Simons] |
12825 | Product: the product of two individuals is the sum of all of their overlaps, written 'x · y' [Simons] |
12826 | Sum: the sum of individuals is what is overlapped if either of them are, written 'x + y' [Simons] |
12829 | General product: the nucleus of all objects satisfying a predicate, written πx(Fx) [Simons] |
12830 | Universe: the mereological sum of all objects whatever, written 'U' [Simons] |
12831 | Atom: an individual with no proper parts, written 'At x' [Simons] |
12844 | Dissective: stuff is dissective if parts of the stuff are always the stuff [Simons] |
12816 | Classical mereology doesn't handle temporal or modal notions very well [Simons] |
12821 | The part-relation is transitive and asymmetric (and thus irreflexive) [Simons] |
18847 | Each wheel is part of a car, but the four wheels are not a further part [Simons] |
12813 | Two standard formalisations of part-whole theory are the Calculus of Individuals, and Mereology [Simons] |
12846 | A 'group' is a collection with a condition which constitutes their being united [Simons] |
12861 | 'The wolves' are the matter of 'the pack'; the latter is a group, with different identity conditions [Simons] |
12848 | The same members may form two groups [Simons] |
12876 | Philosophy is stuck on the Fregean view that an individual is anything with a proper name [Simons] |
12845 | Some natural languages don't distinguish between singular and plural [Simons] |
13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
20457 | Zeno assumes collecting an infinity of things makes an infinite thing [Rovelli] |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
12838 | Four-dimensional ontology has no change, since that needs an object, and time to pass [Simons] |
12842 | There are real relational changes, as well as bogus 'Cambridge changes' [Simons] |
12841 | I don't believe in processes [Simons] |
12836 | Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons] |
20468 | Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli] |
12880 | Moments are things like smiles or skids, which are founded on other things [Simons] |
12881 | A smiling is an event with causes, but the smile is a continuant without causes [Simons] |
12883 | Moving disturbances are are moments which continuously change their basis [Simons] |
12882 | A wave is maintained by a process, but it isn't a process [Simons] |
12840 | I do not think there is a general identity condition for events [Simons] |
20467 | Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli] |
12839 | Relativity has an ontology of things and events, not on space-time diagrams [Simons] |
12879 | Independent objects can exist apart, and maybe even entirely alone [Simons] |
12847 | Mass nouns admit 'much' and 'a little', and resist 'many' and 'few'. [Simons] |
12863 | Mass terms (unlike plurals) are used with indifference to whether they can exist in units [Simons] |
12862 | Gold is not its atoms, because the atoms must be all gold, but gold contains neutrons [Simons] |
12859 | A mixture can have different qualities from its ingredients. [Simons] |
12858 | Mixtures disappear if nearly all of the mixture is one ingredient [Simons] |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
12850 | To individuate something we must pick it out, but also know its limits of variation [Simons] |
12860 | Sortal nouns for continuants tell you their continuance- and cessation-conditions [Simons] |
12886 | A whole requires some unique relation which binds together all of the parts [Simons] |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
12835 | Does Tibbles remain the same cat when it loses its tail? [Simons] |
12857 | Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't [Simons] |
12820 | Without extensional mereology two objects can occupy the same position [Simons] |
15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
12866 | Composition is asymmetric and transitive [Simons] |
12867 | A hand constitutes a fist (when clenched), but a fist is not composed of an augmented hand [Simons] |
15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
12864 | We say 'b is part of a', 'b is a part of a', 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. [Simons] |
12814 | Classical mereology says there are 'sums', for whose existence there is no other evidence [Simons] |
12817 | 'Mereological extensionality' says objects with the same parts are identical [Simons] |
12833 | If there are c atoms, this gives 2^c - 1 individuals, so there can't be just 2 or 12 individuals [Simons] |
12849 | Sums are more plausible for pluralities and masses than they are for individuals [Simons] |
12877 | Sums of things in different categories are found within philosophy. [Simons] |
13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
12888 | The wholeness of a melody seems conventional, but of an explosion it seems natural [Simons] |
12871 | Objects have their essential properties because of the kind of objects they are [Simons] |
12870 | We must distinguish the de dicto 'must' of propositions from the de re 'must' of essence [Simons] |
12873 | Original parts are the best candidates for being essential to artefacts [Simons] |
12874 | An essential part of an essential part is an essential part of the whole [Simons] |
12837 | Four dimensional-objects are stranger than most people think [Simons] |
12856 | Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts [Simons] |
12885 | Objects like chess games, with gaps in them, are thereby less unified [Simons] |
12854 | An entrepreneur and a museum curator would each be happy with their ship at the end [Simons] |
12855 | The 'best candidate' theories mistakenly assume there is one answer to 'Which is the real ship?' [Simons] |
12872 | The zygote is an essential initial part, for a sexually reproduced organism [Simons] |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
12889 | The limits of change for an individual depend on the kind of individual [Simons] |
12843 | With activities if you are doing it you've done it, with performances you must finish to have done it [Simons] |
12875 | One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work [Simons] |
222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |
20461 | The basic ideas of fields and particles are merged in quantum mechanics [Rovelli] |
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
20462 | Because it is quantised, a field behaves like a set of packets of energy [Rovelli] |
20463 | There are about fifteen particles fields, plus a few force fields [Rovelli] |
20464 | The world consists of quantum fields, with elementary events happening in spacetime [Rovelli] |
20460 | Electrons are not waves, because their collisions are at a point, and not spread out [Rovelli] |
20459 | Electrons only exist when they interact, and their being is their combination of quantum leaps [Rovelli] |
20466 | Quantum Theory describes events and possible interactions - not how things are [Rovelli] |
20465 | Nature has three aspects: granularity, indeterminacy, and relations [Rovelli] |
20458 | The world is just particles plus fields; space is the gravitational field [Rovelli] |
20470 | Only heat distinguishes past from future [Rovelli] |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |