28 ideas
| 8207 | The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine] |
| 8208 | In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine] |
| 10633 | 'Some critics admire only one another' cannot be paraphrased in singular first-order [Linnebo] |
| 10638 | A pure logic is wholly general, purely formal, and directly known [Linnebo] |
| 10635 | Second-order quantification and plural quantification are different [Linnebo] |
| 10641 | Traditionally we eliminate plurals by quantifying over sets [Linnebo] |
| 10640 | Instead of complex objects like tables, plurally quantify over mereological atoms tablewise [Linnebo] |
| 10636 | Plural plurals are unnatural and need a first-level ontology [Linnebo] |
| 10639 | Plural quantification may allow a monadic second-order theory with first-order ontology [Linnebo] |
| 8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
| 10643 | We speak of a theory's 'ideological commitments' as well as its 'ontological commitments' [Linnebo] |
| 10637 | Ordinary speakers posit objects without concern for ontology [Linnebo] |
| 4444 | One moderate nominalist view says that properties and relations exist, but they are particulars [Armstrong] |
| 4445 | If properties and relations are particulars, there is still the problem of how to classify and group them [Armstrong] |
| 4448 | Should we decide which universals exist a priori (through words), or a posteriori (through science)? [Armstrong] |
| 4446 | It is claimed that some universals are not exemplified by any particular, so must exist separately [Armstrong] |
| 4440 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' finds that in practice the construction of resemblance classes is hard [Armstrong] |
| 4439 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' says properties are resemblances between classes of particulars [Armstrong] |
| 4431 | 'Predicate Nominalism' says that a 'universal' property is just a predicate applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 4433 | Concept and predicate nominalism miss out some predicates, and may be viciously regressive [Armstrong] |
| 4432 | 'Concept Nominalism' says a 'universal' property is just a mental concept applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 4436 | 'Class Nominalism' may explain properties if we stick to 'natural' sets, and ignore random ones [Armstrong] |
| 4434 | 'Class Nominalism' says that properties or kinds are merely membership of a set (e.g. of white things) [Armstrong] |
| 4435 | 'Class Nominalism' cannot explain co-extensive properties, or sets with random members [Armstrong] |
| 4437 | 'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things [Armstrong] |
| 4438 | 'Mereological Nominalism' may work for whiteness, but it doesn't seem to work for squareness [Armstrong] |
| 8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
| 10634 | Predicates are 'distributive' or 'non-distributive'; do individuals do what the group does? [Linnebo] |