69 ideas
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
15682 | Even fairly simple animals make judgements based on categories [Gelman] |
15691 | Children accept real stable categories, with nonobvious potential that gives causal explanations [Gelman] |
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] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [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] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
15700 | In India, upper-castes essentialize caste more than lower-castes do [Gelman] |
15685 | Essentialism is either natural to us, or an accident of our culture, or a necessary result of language [Gelman] |
15684 | Children's concepts include nonobvious features, like internal parts, functions and causes [Gelman] |
15681 | Essentialism: real or representational? sortal, causal or ideal? real particulars, or placeholders? [Gelman] |
15678 | Essentialism says categories have a true hidden nature which gives an object its identity [Gelman] |
15683 | Sortals are needed for determining essence - the thing must be categorised first [Gelman] |
15697 | Kind (unlike individual) essentialism assumes preexisting natural categories [Gelman] |
15687 | Kinship is essence that comes in degrees, and age groups are essences that change over time [Gelman] |
15679 | Essentialism comes from the cognitive need to categorise [Gelman] |
15698 | We found no evidence that mothers teach essentialism to their children [Gelman] |
15709 | Essentialism is useful for predictions, but it is not the actual structure of reality [Gelman] |
15696 | Peope favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is [Gelman] |
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] |
15707 | There is intentional, mechanical, teleological, essentialist, vitalist and deontological understanding [Gelman] |
15703 | Memories often conform to a theory, rather than being neutral [Gelman] |
15708 | Inductive success is rewarded with more induction [Gelman] |
15694 | Children overestimate the power of a single example [Gelman] |
15695 | Children make errors in induction by focusing too much on categories [Gelman] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
15692 | People tend to be satisfied with shallow explanations [Gelman] |
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] |
15680 | Folk essentialism rests on belief in natural kinds, in hidden properties, and on words indicating structures [Gelman] |
15686 | Labels may indicate categories which embody an essence [Gelman] |
15690 | Causal properties are seen as more central to category concepts [Gelman] |
15688 | Categories are characterized by distance from a prototype [Gelman] |
15689 | Theory-based concepts use rich models to show which similarities really matter [Gelman] |
15699 | Prelinguistic infants acquire and use many categories [Gelman] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
15693 | One sample of gold is enough, but one tree doesn't give the height of trees [Gelman] |
15701 | Nouns seem to invoke stable kinds more than predicates do [Gelman] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [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] |
15705 | Essentialism encourages us to think about the world scientifically [Gelman] |
15702 | Essentialism doesn't mean we know the essences [Gelman] |
15704 | Essentialism starts from richly structured categories, leading to a search for underlying properties [Gelman] |
15706 | A major objection to real essences is the essentialising of social categories like race, caste and occupation [Gelman] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |