54 ideas
16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
4642 | No fact can be real and no proposition true unless there is a Sufficient Reason (even if we can't know it) [Leibniz] |
15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
2115 | Everything in the universe is interconnected, so potentially a mind could know everything [Leibniz] |
2111 | Falsehood involves a contradiction, and truth is contradictory of falsehood [Leibniz] |
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
7644 | The monad idea incomprehensibly spiritualises matter, instead of materialising soul [La Mettrie on Leibniz] |
11857 | He replaced Aristotelian continuants with monads [Leibniz, by Wiggins] |
7843 | Is a drop of urine really an infinity of thinking monads? [Voltaire on Leibniz] |
12751 | It is unclear in 'Monadology' how extended bodies relate to mind-like monads. [Garber on Leibniz] |
19363 | Changes in a monad come from an internal principle, and the diversity within its substance [Leibniz] |
19352 | A 'monad' has basic perception and appetite; a 'soul' has distinct perception and memory [Leibniz] |
16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
7931 | If a substance is just a thing that has properties, it seems to be a characterless non-entity [Leibniz, by Macdonald,C] |
15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
17554 | There must be some internal difference between any two beings in nature [Leibniz] |
15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
2112 | Truths of reason are known by analysis, and are necessary; facts are contingent, and their opposites possible [Leibniz] |
15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
9344 | Mathematical analysis ends in primitive principles, which cannot be and need not be demonstrated [Leibniz] |
2110 | We all expect the sun to rise tomorrow by experience, but astronomers expect it by reason [Leibniz] |
16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
2109 | Increase a conscious machine to the size of a mill - you still won't see perceptions in it [Leibniz] |
16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
19362 | We know the 'I' and its contents by abstraction from awareness of necessary truths [Leibniz] |
16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
12707 | The true elements are atomic monads [Leibniz] |
7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
2114 | This is the most perfect possible universe, in its combination of variety with order [Leibniz] |
2113 | God alone (the Necessary Being) has the privilege that He must exist if He is possible [Leibniz] |