64 ideas
21584 | A sense of timelessness is essential to wisdom [Russell] |
21572 | Philosophical disputes are mostly hopeless, because philosophers don't understand each other [Russell] |
21571 | Philosophical systems are interesting, but we now need a more objective scientific philosophy [Russell] |
21574 | Hegel's confusions over 'is' show how vast systems can be built on simple errors [Russell] |
21587 | Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system [Russell] |
21582 | Physicists accept particles, points and instants, while pretending they don't do metaphysics [Russell] |
5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
21573 | When problems are analysed properly, they are either logical, or not philosophical at all [Russell] |
6294 | In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John] |
8821 | Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John] |
21588 | Logic gives the method of research in philosophy [Russell] |
21586 | The logical connectives are not objects, but are formal, and need a context [Russell] |
21585 | The tortoise won't win, because infinite instants don't compose an infinitely long time [Russell] |
21684 | Atomic facts may be inferrable from others, but never from non-atomic facts [Russell] |
22316 | A positive and negative fact have the same constituents; their difference is primitive [Russell] |
21576 | With asymmetrical relations (before/after) the reduction to properties is impossible [Russell] |
5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
21575 | When we attribute a common quality to a group, we can forget the quality and just talk of the group [Russell] |
5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
21580 | Science condemns sense-data and accepts matter, but a logical construction must link them [Russell] |
5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
21583 | When sense-data change, there must be indistinguishable sense-data in the process [Russell] |
21577 | Empirical truths are particular, so general truths need an a priori input of generality [Russell] |
21579 | Objects are treated as real when they connect with other experiences in a normal way [Russell] |
21578 | Global scepticism is irrefutable, but can't replace our other beliefs, and just makes us hesitate [Russell] |
5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
6416 | Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling] |
5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
21581 | We never experience times, but only succession of events [Russell] |