69 ideas
1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
287 | Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato] |
1644 | Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato] |
20478 | In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato] |
12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
11278 | What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato] |
1643 | If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato] |
7022 | To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato] |
18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
1641 | Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato] |
18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
10784 | Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato] |
18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
16122 | Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato] |
10422 | The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato] |
18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |
18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |