69 ideas
| 3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
| 3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
| 3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
| 3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
| 3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
| 4098 | The theory of descriptions supports internalism, since they are thinkable when the object is non-existent [Crane] |
| 3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
| 3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
| 4077 | Aesthetic properties of thing supervene on their physical properties [Crane] |
| 4078 | Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane] |
| 12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
| 4082 | The distinction between 'resultant' properties (weight) and 'emergent' properties is a bit vague [Crane] |
| 4083 | If mental properties are emergent they add a new type of causation, and physics is not complete [Crane] |
| 4079 | Properties are causes [Crane] |
| 3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
| 4068 | Traditional substance is separate from properties and capable of independent existence [Crane] |
| 3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
| 3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
| 16079 | De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker] |
| 4097 | Maybe there are two kinds of belief - 'de re' beliefs and 'de dicto' beliefs [Crane] |
| 4096 | Maybe beliefs don't need to be conscious, if you are not conscious of the beliefs guiding your actions [Crane] |
| 4093 | Many cases of knowing how can be expressed in propositional terms (like how to get somewhere) [Crane] |
| 3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
| 3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
| 3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
| 3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
| 4108 | Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless, so which is it? [Crane] |
| 4105 | The traditional supports for the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes [Crane] |
| 4104 | One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine [Crane] |
| 4101 | If we smell something we are aware of the smell separately, but we don't perceive a 'look' when we see [Crane] |
| 4102 | The problems of perception disappear if it is a relation to an intentional state, not to an object or sense datum [Crane] |
| 4109 | If perception is much richer than our powers of description, this suggests that it is non-conceptual [Crane] |
| 4103 | The adverbial theory of perceptions says it is the experiences which have properties, not the objects [Crane] |
| 4065 | Is knowledge just a state of mind, or does it also involve the existence of external things? [Crane] |
| 4092 | The core of the consciousness problem is the case of Mary, zombies, and the Hard Question [Crane] |
| 4087 | Intentionalism does not require that all mental states be propositional attitudes [Crane] |
| 4095 | Object-directed attitudes like love are just as significant as propositional attitudes [Crane] |
| 4106 | If someone removes their glasses the content of experience remains, but the quality changes [Crane] |
| 4089 | Pains have a region of the body as their intentional content, not some pain object [Crane] |
| 4090 | Weak intentionalism says qualia are extra properties; strong intentionalism says they are intentional [Crane] |
| 4107 | With inverted qualia a person's experiences would change, but their beliefs remain the same [Crane] |
| 4069 | Descartes did not think of minds as made of a substance, because they are not divisible [Crane] |
| 4074 | Functionalism defines mental states by their causal properties, which rules out epiphenomenalism [Crane] |
| 4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
| 4070 | Properties dualism says mental properties are distinct from physical, despite a single underlying substance [Crane] |
| 4084 | Non-reductive physicalism seeks an explanation of supervenience, but emergentists accept it as basic [Crane] |
| 4080 | If mental supervenes on the physical, then every physical cause will be accompanied by a mental one [Crane] |
| 4075 | Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane] |
| 4085 | Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane] |
| 4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
| 4072 | The completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind [Crane] |
| 4094 | Experience teaches us propositions, because we can reason about our phenomenal experience [Crane] |
| 4100 | The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false. [Crane] |
| 4067 | Broad content entails the existence of the object of the thought [Crane] |
| 4063 | In intensional contexts, truth depends on how extensions are conceived. [Crane] |
| 4071 | Causation can be seen in counterfactual terms, or as increased probability, or as energy flow [Crane] |
| 4076 | Causes are properties, not events, because properties are what make a difference in a situation [Crane] |
| 3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
| 3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |
| 4066 | It seems that 'exists' could sometimes be a predicate [Crane] |