57 ideas
| 6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
| 18776 | Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B] |
| 14684 | A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N] |
| 14669 | For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14667 | System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14668 | In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N] |
| 14692 | System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N] |
| 14671 | What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N] |
| 14686 | S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N] |
| 14691 | S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14693 | The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N] |
| 14670 | Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N] |
| 18774 | Definite descriptions, unlike proper names, have a logical structure [Linsky,B] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 14678 | Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N] |
| 6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
| 14680 | Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N] |
| 14690 | In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N] |
| 14677 | Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N] |
| 14679 | Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| 14688 | Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14685 | Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N] |
| 14681 | Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
| 14676 | Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N] |
| 14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
| 14674 | Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 14682 | Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N] |
| 14687 | Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N] |
| 14683 | Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N] |
| 14672 | Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N] |
| 14675 | Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N] |
| 14673 | You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N] |
| 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] |
| 6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
| 6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |