Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Puzzle about Belief', 'Comments on a Certain Broadsheet' and 'Causal and Metaphysical Necessity'

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14 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 3. Logical Truth
Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker]
I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker]
Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities
What experience could prove 'If a=c and b=c then a=b'? [Descartes]
14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / a. Grue problem
'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [Descartes]
Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker]