114 ideas
15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
2392 | Properties supervene if you can't have one without the other [Chalmers] |
2393 | Logical supervenience is when one set of properties must be accompanied by another set [Chalmers] |
2394 | Natural supervenience is when one set of properties is always accompanied by another set [Chalmers] |
2398 | Reduction requires logical supervenience [Chalmers] |
15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
16048 | Physicalism says in any two physically indiscernible worlds the positive facts are the same [Chalmers, by Bennett,K] |
15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
2401 | All facts are either physical, experiential, laws of nature, second-order final facts, or indexical facts about me [Chalmers] |
14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
16424 | Strong metaphysical necessity allows fewer possible worlds than logical necessity [Chalmers] |
16425 | Metaphysical necessity is a bizarre, brute and inexplicable constraint on possibilities [Chalmers] |
16426 | How can we know the metaphysical impossibilities; the a posteriori only concerns this world [Chalmers] |
15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
13956 | Kripke is often taken to be challenging a priori insights into necessity [Chalmers] |
13963 | Maybe logical possibility does imply conceivability - by an ideal mind [Chalmers] |
2407 | One can wrongly imagine two things being non-identical even though they are the same (morning/evening star) [Chalmers] |
2390 | We attribute beliefs to people in order to explain their behaviour [Chalmers] |
2397 | 'Perception' means either an action or a mental state [Chalmers] |
2422 | The structure of the retina has already simplified the colour information which hits it [Chalmers] |
14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
2396 | Reductive explanation is not the be-all and the end-all of explanation [Chalmers] |
15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
2426 | Why are minds homogeneous and brains fine-grained? [Chalmers] |
2391 | Can we be aware but not conscious? [Chalmers] |
2412 | Can we explain behaviour without consciousness? [Chalmers] |
2386 | Hard Problem: why brains experience things [Chalmers] |
2416 | What turns awareness into consciousness? [Chalmers] |
2423 | Going down the scale, where would consciousness vanish? [Chalmers] |
2403 | Nothing in physics even suggests consciousness [Chalmers] |
15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
2400 | Is intentionality just causal connections? [Chalmers] |
2584 | Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block] |
2389 | Sometimes we don't notice our pains [Chalmers] |
2419 | Why should qualia fade during silicon replacement? [Chalmers] |
2582 | A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block] |
2402 | It seems possible to invert qualia [Chalmers] |
2415 | In blindsight both qualia and intentionality are missing [Chalmers] |
2414 | When distracted we can totally misjudge our own experiences [Chalmers] |
2409 | Maybe dualist interaction is possible at the quantum level? [Chalmers] |
2411 | Supervenience makes interaction laws possible [Chalmers] |
2424 | It is odd if experience is a very recent development [Chalmers] |
2413 | If I can have a zombie twin, my own behaviour doesn't need consciousness [Chalmers] |
2574 | Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block] |
2576 | In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block] |
2575 | Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block] |
2583 | You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block] |
2417 | Does consciousness arise from fine-grained non-reductive functional organisation? [Chalmers] |
2428 | Maybe the whole Chinese Room understands Chinese, though the person doesn't [Chalmers] |
2586 | In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block] |
2418 | The Chinese Mind doesn't seem conscious, but then nor do brains from outside [Chalmers] |
2578 | Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block] |
2585 | Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block] |
2406 | H2O causes liquidity, but no one is a dualist about that [Chalmers] |
2405 | Perhaps consciousness is physically based, but not logically required by that base [Chalmers] |
2395 | Zombies imply natural but not logical supervenience [Chalmers] |
9318 | Phenomenal consciousness is fundamental, with no possible nonphenomenal explanation [Chalmers, by Kriegel/Williford] |
2404 | Nothing external shows whether a mouse is conscious [Chalmers] |
2579 | Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block] |
2429 | Temperature (etc.) is agreed to be reducible, but it is multiply realisable [Chalmers] |
18403 | Indexicals may not be objective, but they are a fact about the world as I see it [Chalmers] |
2577 | Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block] |
2580 | A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block] |
14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
2581 | Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block] |
14708 | Rationalist 2D semantics posits necessary relations between meaning, apriority, and possibility [Chalmers, by Schroeter] |
13958 | The 'primary intension' is non-empirical, and fixes extensions based on the actual-world reference [Chalmers] |
2399 | Meaning has split into primary ("watery stuff"), and secondary counterfactual meaning ("H2O") [Chalmers] |
13959 | The 'secondary intension' is determined by rigidifying (as H2O) the 'water' picked out in the actual world [Chalmers] |
13957 | Primary and secondary intensions are the a priori (actual) and a posteriori (counterfactual) aspects of meaning [Chalmers] |
13961 | We have 'primary' truth-conditions for the actual world, and derived 'secondary' ones for counterfactual worlds [Chalmers] |
13962 | Two-dimensional semantics gives a 'primary' and 'secondary' proposition for each statement [Chalmers] |
14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
13960 | In two-dimensional semantics we have two aspects to truth in virtue of meaning [Chalmers] |
15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
16427 | Presumably God can do anything which is logically possible [Chalmers] |