16 ideas
| 15527 | Defining terms either enables elimination, or shows that they don't require elimination [Lewis] |
| 13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
| 14633 | How do we tell a table's being contingently plastic from its being essentially plastic? [Jackson] |
| 14635 | An x is essentially F if it is F in every possible world in which it appears [Jackson] |
| 13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
| 14632 | Quine may have conflated de re and de dicto essentialism, but there is a real epistemological problem [Jackson] |
| 8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
| 14631 | How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false? [Jackson] |
| 13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
| 13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
| 15530 | A logically determinate name names the same thing in every possible world [Lewis] |
| 13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
| 15528 | A Ramsey sentence just asserts that a theory can be realised, without saying by what [Lewis] |
| 15526 | There is a method for defining new scientific terms just using the terms we already understand [Lewis] |
| 15529 | It is better to have one realisation of a theory than many - but it may not always be possible [Lewis] |
| 15531 | The Ramsey sentence of a theory says that it has at least one realisation [Lewis] |