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All the ideas for 'The Philosophy of Philosophy', 'Events' and 'Getting Causes from Powers'

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60 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
An event is a change in or to an object [Lombard, by Mumford]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties
Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers
We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional
The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers
Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 1. Structure of an Object
Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality
Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum]
Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum]
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum]
The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum]
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 5. Culture
If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum]
Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 6. Causation as primitive
We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum]
A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum]
Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum]
Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum]
Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum]
Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum]
We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum]
Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 7. Strictness of Laws
A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / b. Scientific necessity
There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum]
If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum]