62 ideas
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
18996 | A statement S is 'partly true' if it has some wholly true parts [Yablo] |
19006 | An 'enthymeme' is an argument with an indispensable unstated assumption [Yablo] |
18999 | y is only a proper part of x if there is a z which 'makes up the difference' between them [Yablo] |
19001 | 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo] |
19002 | A nominalist can assert statements about mathematical objects, as being partly true [Yablo] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
18998 | Parthood lacks the restriction of kind which most relations have [Yablo] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
20184 | The only real evil is loss of knowledge [Plato] |
20185 | The most important things in life are wisdom and knowledge [Plato] |
19004 | Gettier says you don't know if you are confused about how it is true [Yablo] |
19007 | A theory need not be true to be good; it should just be true about its physical aspects [Yablo] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
18993 | If sentences point to different evidence, they must have different subject-matter [Yablo] |
19003 | Most people say nonblack nonravens do confirm 'all ravens are black', but only a tiny bit [Yablo] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
18992 | Sentence-meaning is the truth-conditions - plus factors responsible for them [Yablo] |
18994 | The content of an assertion can be quite different from compositional content [Yablo] |
18997 | Truth-conditions as subject-matter has problems of relevance, short cut, and reversal [Yablo] |
19005 | Not-A is too strong to just erase an improper assertion, because it actually reverses A [Yablo] |
203 | Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato] |
202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
193 | Some things are good even though they are not beneficial to men [Plato] |
197 | Some pleasures are not good, and some pains are not evil [Plato] |
200 | People tend only to disapprove of pleasure if it leads to pain, or prevents future pleasure [Plato] |
188 | Socrates did not believe that virtue could be taught [Plato] |
189 | If we punish wrong-doers, it shows that we believe virtue can be taught [Plato] |
204 | Socrates is contradicting himself in claiming virtue can't be taught, but that it is knowledge [Plato] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |