111 ideas
| 6851 | We overvalue whether arguments are valid, and undervalue whether they are interesting [Monk] |
| 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] |
| 3807 | Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 8649 | Two numbers are equal if all of their units correspond to one another [Hume] |
| 21291 | There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume] |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 11942 | Power is the possibility of action, as discovered by experience [Hume] |
| 11949 | There may well be powers in things, with which we are quite unacquainted [Hume] |
| 11950 | We have no idea of powers, because we have no impressions of them [Hume] |
| 11941 | The distinction between a power and its exercise is entirely frivolous [Hume] |
| 11098 | Momentary impressions are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance [Hume, by Quine] |
| 7954 | If we see a resemblance among objects, we apply the same name to them, despite their differences [Hume] |
| 21293 | Individuation is only seeing that a thing is stable and continuous over time [Hume] |
| 12048 | The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume] |
| 13424 | Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume] |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| 21300 | A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume] |
| 21299 | Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume] |
| 1330 | If a republic can retain identity through many changes, so can an individual [Hume] |
| 1321 | If identity survives change or interruption, then resemblance, contiguity or causation must unite the parts of it [Hume] |
| 21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
| 21303 | We accept the identity of a river through change, because it is the river's nature [Hume] |
| 21301 | The purpose of the ship makes it the same one through all variations [Hume] |
| 21290 | Multiple objects cannot convey identity, because we see them as different [Hume] |
| 1207 | Both number and unity are incompatible with the relation of identity [Hume] |
| 21289 | 'An object is the same with itself' is meaningless; it expresses unity, not identity [Hume] |
| 21292 | Saying an object is the same with itself is only meaningful over a period of time [Hume] |
| 9428 | Nothing we clearly imagine is absolutely impossible [Hume] |
| 4766 | Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 6526 | Hume says objects are not a construction, but an imaginative leap [Hume, by Robinson,H] |
| 6489 | Associationism results from having to explain intentionality just with sense-data [Robinson,H on Hume] |
| 6182 | Even Hume didn't include mathematics in his empiricism [Hume, by Kant] |
| 12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
| 5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
| 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] |
| 7446 | The idea of inductive evidence, around 1660, made Hume's problem possible [Hume, by Hacking] |
| 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] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| 21806 | Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume] |
| 3819 | Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume] |
| 1317 | A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume] |
| 1331 | The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume] |
| 1388 | Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume] |
| 21297 | A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume] |
| 1316 | Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume] |
| 1333 | Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume] |
| 1332 | We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume] |
| 21305 | Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume] |
| 21307 | Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume] |
| 21306 | Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume] |
| 21294 | A continuous lifelong self must be justified by a single sustained impression, which we don't have [Hume] |
| 21295 | When I introspect I can only observe my perceptions, and never a self which has them [Hume] |
| 21298 | We pretend our perceptions are continuous, and imagine a self to fill the gaps [Hume] |
| 21304 | Identity in the mind is a fiction, like that fiction that plants and animals stay the same [Hume] |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| 20030 | If one event causes another, the two events must be wholly distinct [Hume, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 6692 | For Hume, practical reason has little force, because we can always modify our desires [Hume, by Graham] |
| 8257 | Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will [Hume] |
| 22374 | You can only hold people responsible for actions which arise out of their character [Hume] |
| 6850 | Wittgenstein pared his life down in his search for decency [Monk] |
| 22382 | We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume] |
| 4008 | Modern science has destroyed the Platonic synthesis of scientific explanation and morality [Hume, by Taylor,C] |
| 8067 | The problem of getting to 'ought' from 'is' would also apply in getting to 'owes' or 'needs' [Anscombe on Hume] |
| 4578 | You can't move from 'is' to 'ought' without giving some explanation or reason for the deduction [Hume] |
| 3650 | Total selfishness is not irrational [Hume] |
| 14301 | We have no good concept of solidity or matter, because accounts of them are all circular [Hume] |
| 8382 | For Hume a constant conjunction is both necessary and sufficient for causation [Hume, by Crane] |
| 19274 | Hume seems to presuppose necessary connections between mental events [Kripke on Hume] |
| 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] |
| 21296 | If all of my perceptions were removed by death, nothing more is needed for total annihilation [Hume] |