51 ideas
6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
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] |
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] |
6143 | Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks] |
6135 | A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks] |
6145 | Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks] |
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] |
6124 | I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks] |
6134 | Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks] |
6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
14229 | Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins] |
6142 | The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks] |
14472 | If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson] |
14469 | Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks] |
12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
6137 | Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks] |
6141 | There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks] |
6127 | 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks] |
6131 | Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks] |
6132 | Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks] |
6130 | 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks] |
6138 | It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks] |
6128 | Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks] |
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] |
6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
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] |
6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
6150 | The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks] |
6144 | You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks] |
6140 | Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks] |
6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |
6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |
6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
22251 | Liberalism may fail because it neglects the shared nature of what we pursue and protect [Haldane] |
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] |