50 ideas
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| 4036 | What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver] |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| 10580 | Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo] |
| 10579 | Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo] |
| 10578 | We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo] |
| 10577 | Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo] |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| 15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| 4034 | Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong] |
| 8535 | To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong] |
| 8537 | Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong] |
| 8538 | Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong] |
| 8539 | Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| 8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
| 8532 | Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong] |
| 8530 | Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong] |
| 8536 | We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong] |
| 8531 | In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| 15753 | Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong] |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
| 8533 | Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong] |
| 4035 | There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong] |
| 8541 | Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong] |
| 8540 | The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong] |