76 ideas
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| 14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
| 14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
| 15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| 13838 | A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking] |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| 13834 | Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C' [Hacking] |
| 13835 | Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with [Hacking] |
| 13833 | 'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction [Hacking] |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| 15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
| 14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
| 14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
| 15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
| 13845 | The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking] |
| 13840 | First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem [Hacking] |
| 13844 | A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers [Hacking] |
| 15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
| 13842 | Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds [Hacking] |
| 15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
| 13837 | With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically [Hacking] |
| 15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
| 13839 | Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers [Hacking] |
| 15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
| 13843 | If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it [Hacking] |
| 21812 | Being is the product of pure intellect [Plotinus] |
| 21817 | The One does not exist, but is the source of all existence [Plotinus] |
| 21824 | The One is a principle which transcends Being [Plotinus] |
| 21813 | Number determines individual being [Plotinus] |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| 15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
| 15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
| 15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
| 15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
| 14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
| 14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| 15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| 14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
| 14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
| 14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
| 14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
| 14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| 5506 | If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication [Plotinus] |
| 21827 | The movement of Soul is continuous, but we are only aware of the parts of it that are sensed [Plotinus] |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| 21828 | A person is the whole of their soul [Plotinus] |
| 21809 | Our soul has the same ideal nature as the oldest god, and is honourable above the body [Plotinus] |
| 21825 | The soul is outside of all of space, and has no connection to the bodily order [Plotinus] |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| 21826 | The Soul reasons about the Right, so there must be some permanent Right about which it reasons [Plotinus] |
| 6922 | Ecstasy is for the neo-Platonist the highest psychological state of man [Plotinus, by Feuerbach] |
| 21814 | How can multiple existence arise from the unified One? [Plotinus] |
| 21815 | Because the One is immobile, it must create by radiation, light the sun producing light [Plotinus] |
| 21816 | Soul is the logos of Nous, just as Nous is the logos of the One [Plotinus] |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| 14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| 15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
| 21808 | Soul is author of all of life, and of the stars, and it gives them law and movement [Plotinus] |
| 21811 | Even the soul is secondary to the Intellectual-Principle [Nous], of which soul is an utterance [Plotinus] |