44 ideas
19336 | Wisdom involves the desire to achieve perfection [Leibniz] |
9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
7696 | Leibniz first asked 'why is there something rather than nothing?' [Leibniz, by Jacquette] |
19341 | There must be a straining towards existence in the essence of all possible things [Leibniz] |
19428 | Because something does exist, there must be a drive in possible things towards existence [Leibniz] |
4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
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] |
4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
5047 | The world is physically necessary, as its contrary would imply imperfection or moral absurdity [Leibniz] |
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] |
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] |
4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
19343 | We follow the practical rule which always seeks maximum effect for minimum cost [Leibniz] |
9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
19429 | The principle of determination in things obtains the greatest effect with the least effort [Leibniz] |
4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |