53 ideas
| 9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
| 12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
| 12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
| 9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
| 15592 | The usual Tarskian interpretation of variables is to specify their range of values [Fine,K] |
| 15593 | Variables can be viewed as special terms - functions taking assignments into individuals [Fine,K] |
| 15590 | It seemed that Frege gave the syntax for variables, and Tarski the semantics, and that was that [Fine,K] |
| 15591 | In separate expressions variables seem identical in role, but in the same expression they aren't [Fine,K] |
| 15595 | The 'algebraic' account of variables reduces quantification to the algebra of its component parts [Fine,K] |
| 15594 | 'Instantial' accounts of variables say we grasp arbitrary instances from their use in quantification [Fine,K] |
| 15599 | Cicero/Cicero and Cicero/Tully may differ in relationship, despite being semantically the same [Fine,K] |
| 12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
| 12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
| 9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
| 9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
| 12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
| 12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
| 12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
| 9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
| 12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
| 12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
| 12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
| 12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
| 12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
| 12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
| 15603 | I can only represent individuals as the same if I do not already represent them as the same [Fine,K] |
| 15604 | If Cicero=Tully refers to the man twice, then surely Cicero=Cicero does as well? [Fine,K] |
| 12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
| 12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
| 9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
| 16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
| 9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
| 12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
| 12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
| 12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
| 9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
| 9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
| 20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
| 15602 | Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects [Fine,K] |
| 15588 | You cannot determine the full content from a thought's intrinsic character, as relations are involved [Fine,K] |
| 9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
| 15596 | The standard aim of semantics is to assign a semantic value to each expression [Fine,K] |
| 15587 | That two utterances say the same thing may not be intrinsic to them, but involve their relationships [Fine,K] |
| 15589 | The two main theories are Holism (which is inferential), and Representational (which is atomistic) [Fine,K] |
| 15598 | We should pursue semantic facts as stated by truths in theories (and not put the theories first!) [Fine,K] |
| 15600 | Referentialist semantics has objects for names, properties for predicates, and propositions for connectives [Fine,K] |
| 15601 | Fregeans approach the world through sense, Referentialists through reference [Fine,K] |
| 15605 | I take indexicals such as 'this' and 'that' to be linked to some associated demonstration [Fine,K] |
| 9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
| 12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
| 12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
| 12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
| 12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |