Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Necessity, Essence and Individuation' and 'Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous'

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59 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle]
2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence
I do not believe in the existence of anything, if I see no reason to believe it [Berkeley]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
I know that nothing inconsistent can exist [Berkeley]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent
There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
There is no other substance, in a strict sense, than spirit [Berkeley]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence
Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / c. Essentials are necessary
Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 10. Impossibility
A thing is shown to be impossible if a contradiction is demonstrated within its definition [Berkeley]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority [Sidelle, by Sider]
To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary [Sidelle]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 3. A Posteriori Necessary
The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle]
Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation
A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle]
'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / a. Naïve realism
Since our ideas vary when the real things are said to be unchanged, they cannot be true copies [Berkeley]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
Sensible objects are just sets of sensible qualities [Berkeley]
Berkeley did not deny material things; he merely said they must be defined through sensations [Berkeley, by Ayer]
Berkeley needed a phenomenalist account of the self, as well as of material things [Ayer on Berkeley]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / c. Empirical idealism
'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley]
For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling]
Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley]
There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley]
I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley]
There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley]
Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
Primary qualities (such as shape, solidity, mass) are held to really exist, unlike secondary qualities [Berkeley]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
A mite would see its own foot as large, though we would see it as tiny [Berkeley]
The apparent size of an object varies with its distance away, so that can't be a property of the object [Berkeley]
'Solidity' is either not a sensible quality at all, or it is clearly relative to our senses [Berkeley]
Distance is not directly perceived by sight [Berkeley]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves [Berkeley]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Real things and imaginary or dreamed things differ because the latter are much fainter [Berkeley]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism
Geometry is originally perceived by senses, and so is not purely intellectual [Berkeley]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 3. Illusion Scepticism
It is possible that we could perceive everything as we do now, but nothing actually existed. [Berkeley]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
A hot hand and a cold hand will have different experiences in the same tepid water [Berkeley]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley]
18. Thought / C. Content / 2. Ideas
Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water' [Sidelle]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open [Sidelle]
19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / a. Preconditions for ethics
Immorality is not in the action, but in the deviation of the will from moral law [Berkeley]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley]
There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
It has been proved that creation is the workmanship of God, from its beauty and usefulness [Berkeley]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / b. Human Evil
People are responsible because they have limited power, though this ultimately derives from God [Berkeley]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil
If sin is not just physical, we don't consider God the origin of sin because he causes physical events [Berkeley]