51 ideas
| 10308 | Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale] |
| 10314 | An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase [Hale] |
| 15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
| 10316 | We should decide whether singular terms are genuine by their usage [Hale] |
| 10312 | Often the same singular term does not ensure reliable inference [Hale] |
| 10313 | Plenty of clear examples have singular terms with no ontological commitment [Hale] |
| 10322 | If singular terms can't be language-neutral, then we face a relativity about their objects [Hale] |
| 15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
| 15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
| 10512 | The abstract/concrete distinction is based on what is perceivable, causal and located [Hale] |
| 10517 | Colours and points seem to be both concrete and abstract [Hale] |
| 10519 | The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names [Hale] |
| 10520 | Token-letters and token-words are concrete objects, type-letters and type-words abstract [Hale] |
| 10524 | There is a hierarchy of abstraction, based on steps taken by equivalence relations [Hale] |
| 15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
| 10318 | Realists take universals to be the referrents of both adjectives and of nouns [Hale] |
| 10521 | If F can't have location, there is no problem of things having F in different locations [Hale] |
| 10511 | It is doubtful if one entity, a universal, can be picked out by both predicates and abstract nouns [Hale] |
| 10310 | Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated [Hale] |
| 10518 | Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not [Hale] |
| 10513 | Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal [Hale] |
| 10514 | If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract [Hale] |
| 10523 | Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated [Hale] |
| 10307 | The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage [Hale] |
| 10315 | We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?' [Hale] |
| 10522 | The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations [Hale] |
| 10321 | We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale] |
| 15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
| 15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
| 15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
| 15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
| 15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
| 15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
| 15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
| 15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
| 15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
| 15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 3400 | Things must have parts to intermingle [Gassendi] |
| 15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
| 15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
| 15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
| 15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |