88 ideas
| 2666 | Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite (good) [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
| 21390 | Future events are true if one day we will say 'this event is happening now' [Carneades] |
| 21672 | We say future things are true that will possess actuality at some following time [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
| 4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
| 4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
| 4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
| 15825 | Carneades denied the transitivity of identity [Carneades, by Chisholm] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 21389 | Carneades distinguished logical from causal necessity, when talking of future events [Long on Carneades] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
| 4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
| 4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
| 4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
| 4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
| 4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
| 4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
| 21671 | Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21391 | Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 21674 | Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| 4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
| 4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
| 4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
| 4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
| 4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| 4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
| 4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
| 4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
| 4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
| 4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
| 4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
| 4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
| 4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
| 4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
| 4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
| 4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
| 4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 7398 | Carneades said that after a shipwreck a wise man would seize the only plank by force [Carneades, by Tuck] |
| 21392 | People change laws for advantage; either there is no justice, or it is a form of self-injury [Carneades, by Lactantius] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |