Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Against the Physicists (two books)' and 'Necessity, Essence and Individuation'

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43 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
15169 Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle]
2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
15164 We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent
15180 There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
22744 Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence
15184 Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / c. Essentials are necessary
15172 Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
15181 Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
15173 That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
15185 We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
15175 Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
15032 Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority [Sidelle, by Sider]
15179 To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary [Sidelle]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 3. A Posteriori Necessary
15171 The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
15167 Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle]
15177 Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
15176 The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation
15174 A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle]
15183 'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
15165 A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
22748 Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
22746 If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
22741 The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
15168 That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water' [Sidelle]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
15166 Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open [Sidelle]
19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
15182 Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
22086 The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
15178 Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
22747 A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
22749 Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
22750 Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
22742 Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
22751 If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
22730 All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
22739 God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
22738 The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
22734 God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
22740 God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
22735 The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
22732 The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
22728 Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
22737 An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
22731 It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]