28 ideas
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
| 9355 | One sort of circularity presupposes a premise, the other presupposes a rule being used [Braithwaite, by Devitt] |
| 15007 | If you make 'grounding' fundamental, you have to mention some non-fundamental notions [Sider on Fine,K] |
| 15006 | Something is grounded when it holds, and is explained, and necessitated by something else [Fine,K, by Sider] |
| 15055 | Grounding relations are best expressed as relations between sentences [Fine,K] |
| 15050 | Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form [Fine,K] |
| 15051 | Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction [Fine,K] |
| 15052 | Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence [Fine,K] |
| 15056 | The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced [Fine,K] |
| 15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
| 15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
| 15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
| 15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
| 15061 | Although colour depends on us, we can describe the world that way if it picks out fundamentals [Fine,K] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
| 15057 | Ultimate explanations are in 'grounds', which account for other truths, which hold in virtue of the grounding [Fine,K] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |