64 ideas
23027 | Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
4194 | Metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality as a whole [Lowe] |
4214 | Maybe such concepts as causation, identity and existence are primitive and irreducible [Lowe] |
4222 | If all that exists is what is being measured, what about the people and instruments doing the measuring? [Lowe] |
4217 | It is more extravagant, in general, to revise one's logic than to augment one's ontology [Lowe] |
23030 | Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
4229 | An infinite series of tasks can't be completed because it has no last member [Lowe] |
4240 | It might be argued that mathematics does not, or should not, aim at truth [Lowe] |
4241 | If there are infinite numbers and finite concrete objects, this implies that numbers are abstract objects [Lowe] |
4239 | Nominalists deny abstract objects, because we can have no reason to believe in their existence [Lowe] |
4202 | Change can be of composition (the component parts), or quality (properties), or substance [Lowe] |
4201 | Four theories of qualitative change are 'a is F now', or 'a is F-at-t', or 'a-at-t is F', or 'a is-at-t F' [Lowe, by PG] |
4219 | Numerically distinct events of the same kind (like two battles) can coincide in space and time [Lowe] |
4221 | Maybe modern physics requires an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology [Lowe] |
4220 | Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time [Lowe] |
4225 | Events are changes in the properties of or relations between things [Lowe] |
4196 | The main categories of existence are either universal and particular, or abstract and concrete [Lowe] |
4234 | Trope theory says blueness is a real feature of objects, but not the same as an identical blue found elsewhere [Lowe] |
4235 | Maybe a cushion is just a bundle of tropes, such as roundness, blueness and softness [Lowe] |
4236 | Tropes seem to be abstract entities, because they can't exist alone, but must come in bundles [Lowe] |
4197 | The category of universals can be sub-divided into properties and relations [Lowe] |
4232 | Nominalists believe that only particulars exist [Lowe] |
4205 | 'Is non-self-exemplifying' is a predicate which cannot denote a property (as it would be a contradiction) [Lowe] |
4233 | If 'blueness' is a set of particulars, there is danger of circularity, or using universals, in identifying the set [Lowe] |
4206 | Conventionalists see the world as an amorphous lump without identities, but are we part of the lump? [Lowe] |
4204 | Statues can't survive much change to their shape, unlike lumps of bronze, which must retain material [Lowe] |
4200 | If old parts are stored and then appropriated, they are no longer part of the original (which is the renovated ship). [Lowe] |
4198 | If 5% replacement preserves a ship, we can replace 4% and 4% again, and still retain the ship [Lowe] |
4199 | A renovation or a reconstruction of an original ship would be accepted, as long as the other one didn't exist [Lowe] |
4203 | Identity of Indiscernibles (same properties, same thing) ) is not Leibniz's Law (same thing, same properties) [Lowe] |
4195 | It is impossible to reach a valid false conclusion from true premises, so reason itself depends on possibility [Lowe] |
4207 | We might eliminate 'possible' and 'necessary' in favour of quantification over possible worlds [Lowe] |
23044 | All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23034 | The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
4223 | Unfalsifiability may be a failure in an empirical theory, but it is a virtue in metaphysics [Lowe] |
4193 | The behaviour of persons and social groups seems to need rational rather than causal explanation [Lowe] |
4238 | The centre of mass of the solar system is a non-causal abstract object, despite having a location [Lowe] |
4237 | Concrete and abstract objects are distinct because the former have causal powers and relations [Lowe] |
11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
23032 | What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23045 | Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH] |
23050 | The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH] |
23052 | Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH] |
23036 | The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23039 | A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23038 | People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
4210 | If the concept of a cause says it precedes its effect, that rules out backward causation by definition [Lowe] |
4209 | The theories of fact causation and event causation are both worth serious consideration [Lowe] |
4215 | It seems proper to say that only substances (rather than events) have causal powers [Lowe] |
4211 | Causal overdetermination is either actual overdetermination, or pre-emption, or the fail-safe case [Lowe] |
4213 | Causation may be instances of laws (seen either as constant conjunctions, or as necessities) [Lowe] |
4212 | Hume showed that causation could at most be natural necessity, never metaphysical necessity [Lowe] |
14581 | The normative view says laws show the natural behaviour of natural kind members [Lowe, by Mumford/Anjum] |
4208 | 'If he wasn't born he wouldn't have died' doesn't mean birth causes death, so causation isn't counterfactual [Lowe] |
4224 | If motion is change of distance between objects, it involves no intrinsic change in the objects [Lowe] |
4227 | Surfaces, lines and points are not, strictly speaking, parts of space, but 'limits', which are abstract [Lowe] |
4228 | If space is entirely relational, what makes a boundary, or a place unoccupied by physical objects? [Lowe] |
23031 | God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH] |
23041 | God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH] |