95 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] |
| 14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
| 14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| 14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
| 14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
| 14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
| 14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
| 14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
| 14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
| 14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
| 14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
| 14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
| 14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
| 14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
| 14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
| 14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| 10859 | A set is 'well-ordered' if every subset has a first element [Clegg] |
| 10857 | Set theory made a closer study of infinity possible [Clegg] |
| 10864 | Any set can always generate a larger set - its powerset, of subsets [Clegg] |
| 10872 | Extensionality: Two sets are equal if and only if they have the same elements [Clegg] |
| 10875 | Pairing: For any two sets there exists a set to which they both belong [Clegg] |
| 10876 | Unions: There is a set of all the elements which belong to at least one set in a collection [Clegg] |
| 10878 | Infinity: There exists a set of the empty set and the successor of each element [Clegg] |
| 10877 | Powers: All the subsets of a given set form their own new powerset [Clegg] |
| 10879 | Choice: For every set a mechanism will choose one member of any non-empty subset [Clegg] |
| 10871 | Axiom of Existence: there exists at least one set [Clegg] |
| 10874 | Specification: a condition applied to a set will always produce a new set [Clegg] |
| 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] |
| 10880 | Mathematics can be 'pure' (unapplied), 'real' (physically grounded); or 'applied' (just applicable) [Clegg] |
| 10861 | Beyond infinity cardinals and ordinals can come apart [Clegg] |
| 10860 | An ordinal number is defined by the set that comes before it [Clegg] |
| 10854 | Transcendental numbers can't be fitted to finite equations [Clegg] |
| 10858 | By adding an axis of imaginary numbers, we get the useful 'number plane' instead of number line [Clegg] |
| 10853 | Either lack of zero made early mathematics geometrical, or the geometrical approach made zero meaningless [Clegg] |
| 10866 | Cantor's account of infinities has the shaky foundation of irrational numbers [Clegg] |
| 10869 | The Continuum Hypothesis is independent of the axioms of set theory [Clegg] |
| 10862 | The 'continuum hypothesis' says aleph-one is the cardinality of the reals [Clegg] |
| 14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
| 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] |
| 14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| 14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
| 14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| 14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
| 14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
| 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] |
| 14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [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] |
| 14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
| 14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
| 14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
| 14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |