47 ideas
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| 19740 | A very hungry man cannot choose between equidistant piles of food [Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 398 | Each thing that has a function is for the sake of that function [Aristotle] |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| 394 | An unworn sandal is in vain, but nothing in nature is in vain [Aristotle] |
| 396 | There has to be some goal, and not just movement to infinity [Aristotle] |
| 16102 | Aether moves in circles and is imperishable; the four elements perish, and move in straight lines [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| 17463 | An element is what bodies are analysed into, and won't itself divide into something else [Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 399 | If the more you raise some earth the faster it moves, why does the whole earth not move? [Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 20918 | Void is a kind of place, so it can't explain place [Aristotle] |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
| 402 | The Earth must be spherical, because it casts a convex shadow on the moon [Aristotle] |
| 403 | The earth must be round and of limited size, because moving north or south makes different stars visible [Aristotle] |
| 1498 | Everyone agrees that the world had a beginning, but thinkers disagree over whether it will end [Aristotle] |
| 395 | It seems possible that there exists a limited number of other worlds apart from this one [Aristotle] |