30 ideas
13734 | Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J] |
13751 | If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J] |
13743 | We should not multiply basic entities, but we can have as many derivative entities as we like [Schaffer,J] |
9572 | Realists about sets say there exists a null set in the real world, with no members [Chihara] |
9550 | We only know relational facts about the empty set, but nothing intrinsic [Chihara] |
9562 | In simple type theory there is a hierarchy of null sets [Chihara] |
9573 | The null set is a structural position which has no other position in membership relation [Chihara] |
9551 | What is special about Bill Clinton's unit set, in comparison with all the others? [Chihara] |
9549 | The set theorist cannot tell us what 'membership' is [Chihara] |
9571 | ZFU refers to the physical world, when it talks of 'urelements' [Chihara] |
9563 | A pack of wolves doesn't cease when one member dies [Chihara] |
9561 | The mathematics of relations is entirely covered by ordered pairs [Chihara] |
9552 | Sentences are consistent if they can all be true; for Frege it is that no contradiction can be deduced [Chihara] |
9553 | Analytic geometry gave space a mathematical structure, which could then have axioms [Chihara] |
10192 | We can replace existence of sets with possibility of constructing token sentences [Chihara, by MacBride] |
13741 | If 'there are red roses' implies 'there are roses', then 'there are prime numbers' implies 'there are numbers' [Schaffer,J] |
13748 | Grounding is unanalysable and primitive, and is the basic structuring concept in metaphysics [Schaffer,J] |
13747 | Supervenience is just modal correlation [Schaffer,J] |
13744 | The cosmos is the only fundamental entity, from which all else exists by abstraction [Schaffer,J] |
9559 | If a successful theory confirms mathematics, presumably a failed theory disconfirms it? [Chihara] |
9566 | No scientific explanation would collapse if mathematical objects were shown not to exist [Chihara] |
13739 | Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J] |
13742 | There exist heaps with no integral unity, so we should accept arbitrary composites in the same way [Schaffer,J] |
13752 | The notion of 'grounding' can explain integrated wholes in a way that mere aggregates can't [Schaffer,J] |
13749 | Belief in impossible worlds may require dialetheism [Schaffer,J] |
13740 | 'Moorean certainties' are more credible than any sceptical argument [Schaffer,J] |
9568 | I prefer the open sentences of a Constructibility Theory, to Platonist ideas of 'equivalence classes' [Chihara] |
9547 | Mathematical entities are causally inert, so the causal theory of reference won't work for them [Chihara] |
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
9574 | 'Gunk' is an individual possessing no parts that are atoms [Chihara] |