63 ideas
| 7950 | Philosophy tries to explain how the actual is possible, given that it seems impossible [Macdonald,C] |
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| 7923 | 'Did it for the sake of x' doesn't involve a sake, so how can ontological commitments be inferred? [Macdonald,C] |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| 7933 | Don't assume that a thing has all the properties of its parts [Macdonald,C] |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| 7944 | Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk [Macdonald,C] |
| 7938 | Relational properties are clearly not essential to substances [Macdonald,C] |
| 7967 | Being taller is an external relation, but properties and substances have internal relations [Macdonald,C] |
| 7965 | Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7934 | Tropes are abstract (two can occupy the same place), but not universals (they have locations) [Macdonald,C] |
| 7958 | Properties are sets of exactly resembling property-particulars [Macdonald,C] |
| 7972 | Tropes are abstract particulars, not concrete particulars, so the theory is not nominalist [Macdonald,C] |
| 7959 | How do a group of resembling tropes all resemble one another in the same way? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7960 | Trope Nominalism is the only nominalism to introduce new entities, inviting Ockham's Razor [Macdonald,C] |
| 7951 | Numerical sameness is explained by theories of identity, but what explains qualitative identity? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7964 | How can universals connect instances, if they are nothing like them? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7971 | Real Nominalism is only committed to concrete particulars, word-tokens, and (possibly) sets [Macdonald,C] |
| 7955 | Resemblance Nominalism cannot explain either new resemblances, or absence of resemblances [Macdonald,C] |
| 7961 | A 'thing' cannot be in two places at once, and two things cannot be in the same place at once [Macdonald,C] |
| 7926 | We 'individuate' kinds of object, and 'identify' particular specimens [Macdonald,C] |
| 7936 | Unlike bundles of properties, substances have an intrinsic unity [Macdonald,C] |
| 7930 | The bundle theory of substance implies the identity of indiscernibles [Macdonald,C] |
| 7932 | A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view [Macdonald,C] |
| 7937 | When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology [Macdonald,C] |
| 7939 | Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't [Macdonald,C] |
| 7940 | A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle [Macdonald,C] |
| 7948 | A statue and its matter have different persistence conditions, so they are not identical [Macdonald,C] |
| 7929 | A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence [Macdonald,C] |
| 7941 | Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular [Macdonald,C] |
| 7942 | The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change [Macdonald,C] |
| 7943 | A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible [Macdonald,C] |
| 7927 | At different times Leibniz articulated three different versions of his so-called Law [Macdonald,C] |
| 7928 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is false, because it is not necessarily true [Macdonald,C] |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| 7947 | In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself [Macdonald,C] |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| 18202 | The concept of a field gradually replaced the substances in explaining relations between charges [Einstein/Infeld] |