71 ideas
| 14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
| 22271 | Aristotle was the first to use schematic letters in logic [Aristotle, by Potter] |
| 11060 | Aristotelian syllogisms are three-part, subject-predicate, existentially committed, with laws of thought [Aristotle, by Hanna] |
| 18909 | Aristotelian sentences are made up by one of four 'formative' connectors [Aristotle, by Engelbretsen] |
| 8080 | Aristotelian identified 256 possible syllogisms, saying that 19 are valid [Aristotle, by Devlin] |
| 13912 | Aristotle replaced Plato's noun-verb form with unions of pairs of terms by one of four 'copulae' [Aristotle, by Engelbretsen/Sayward] |
| 8071 | Aristotle listed nineteen valid syllogisms (though a few of them were wrong) [Aristotle, by Devlin] |
| 15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
| 13819 | Aristotle's said some Fs are G or some Fs are not G, forgetting that there might be no Fs [Bostock on Aristotle] |
| 9403 | There are three different deductions for actual terms, necessary terms and possible terms [Aristotle] |
| 11148 | Deduction is when we suppose one thing, and another necessarily follows [Aristotle] |
| 18896 | Aristotle places terms at opposite ends, joined by a quantified copula [Aristotle, by Sommers] |
| 3300 | Aristotle's logic is based on the subject/predicate distinction, which leads him to substances and properties [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
| 15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
| 11149 | Affirming/denying sentences are universal, particular, or indeterminate [Aristotle] |
| 8079 | Aristotelian logic has two quantifiers of the subject ('all' and 'some') [Aristotle, by Devlin] |
| 15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
| 14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
| 15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
| 14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
| 14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| 14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| 14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
| 14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
| 14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
| 14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
| 14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
| 14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
| 14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
| 14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
| 14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
| 14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
| 14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
| 14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
| 14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
| 14641 | A deduction is necessary if the major (but not the minor) premise is also necessary [Aristotle] |
| 15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
| 14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
| 15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
| 15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
| 15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
| 15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
| 15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
| 15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
| 15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
| 15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
| 15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
| 18911 | Linguistic terms form a hierarchy, with higher terms predicable of increasing numbers of things [Aristotle, by Engelbretsen] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
| 15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
| 15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
| 15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |
| 14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| 14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
| 14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
| 14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |