67 ideas
| 19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
| 3750 | "It is true that x" means no more than x [Ramsey] |
| 19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
| 19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
| 19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
| 13430 | Infinity: there is an infinity of distinguishable individuals [Ramsey] |
| 13428 | Reducibility: to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function [Ramsey] |
| 13427 | Either 'a = b' vacuously names the same thing, or absurdly names different things [Ramsey] |
| 13334 | Contradictions are either purely logical or mathematical, or they involved thought and language [Ramsey] |
| 6409 | The 'simple theory of types' distinguishes levels among properties [Ramsey, by Grayling] |
| 13426 | Formalists neglect content, but the logicists have focused on generalizations, and neglected form [Ramsey] |
| 13425 | Formalism is hopeless, because it focuses on propositions and ignores concepts [Ramsey] |
| 19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
| 19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
| 19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
| 19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
| 17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
| 19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
| 19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
| 19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
| 19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
| 8495 | The distinction between particulars and universals is a mistake made because of language [Ramsey] |
| 8493 | We could make universals collections of particulars, or particulars collections of their qualities [Ramsey] |
| 8494 | Obviously 'Socrates is wise' and 'Socrates has wisdom' express the same fact [Ramsey] |
| 17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
| 17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
| 19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
| 19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
| 19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
| 19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
| 17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
| 17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
| 17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
| 19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
| 19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
| 19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
| 23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
| 19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
| 19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
| 19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
| 19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
| 19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
| 13766 | 'If' is the same as 'given that', so the degrees of belief should conform to probability theory [Ramsey, by Ramsey] |
| 10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
| 14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
| 17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
| 17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
| 19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
| 19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
| 3212 | Beliefs are maps by which we steer [Ramsey] |
| 22328 | I just confront the evidence, and let it act on me [Ramsey] |
| 22325 | A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
| 19724 | Belief is knowledge if it is true, certain, and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
| 6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
| 19143 | Ramsey gave axioms for an uncertain agent to decide their preferences [Ramsey, by Davidson] |
| 19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
| 19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| 18818 | Sentence meaning is given by the actions to which it would lead [Ramsey] |
| 9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
| 9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
| 19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
| 19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
| 17993 | Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter] |
| 19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
| 19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |