47 ideas
22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
8478 | Dewey argued long before Wittgenstein that there could not seriously be a private language [Dewey, by Orenstein] |
22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |