207 ideas
| 15209 | Like disastrous small errors in navigation, small misunderstandings can wreck intellectual life [Harré/Madden] |
| 15215 | Philosophy devises and assesses conceptual schemes in the service of worldviews [Harré/Madden] |
| 15212 | Analysis of concepts based neither on formalism nor psychology can arise from examining what we know [Harré/Madden] |
| 15210 | Humeans see analysis in terms of formal logic, because necessities are fundamentally logical relations [Harré/Madden] |
| 15236 | Positivism says science only refers to immediate experiences [Harré/Madden] |
| 7113 | Phenomenology assumes that all consciousness is of something [Sartre] |
| 15227 | Logically, definitions have a subject, and a set of necessary predicates [Harré/Madden] |
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 15273 | Points can be 'dense' by unending division, but must meet a tougher criterion to be 'continuous' [Harré/Madden] |
| 15274 | Points are 'continuous' if any 'cut' point participates in both halves of the cut [Harré/Madden] |
| 15211 | There is not an exclusive dichotomy between the formal and the logical [Harré/Madden] |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22227 | For Sartre there is only being for-itself, or being in-itself (which is beyond experience) [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| 15261 | Humeans can only explain change with continuity as successive replacement [Harré/Madden] |
| 15268 | Humeans construct their objects from events, but we construct events from objects [Harré/Madden] |
| 15257 | The induction problem fades if you work with things, rather than with events [Harré/Madden] |
| 15300 | Fundamental particulars can't change [Harré/Madden] |
| 15319 | Hard individual blocks don't fix what 'things' are; fluids are no less material things [Harré/Madden] |
| 15320 | Magnetic and gravity fields can occupy the same place without merging [Harré/Madden] |
| 15318 | Gravitational and electrical fields are, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material [Harré/Madden] |
| 15267 | Events are changes in states of affairs (which consist of structured particulars, with powers and relations) [Harré/Madden] |
| 15281 | Humeans see predicates as independent, but science says they are connected [Harré/Madden] |
| 15279 | Energy was introduced to physics to refer to the 'store of potency' of a moving ball [Harré/Madden] |
| 15276 | Some powers need a stimulus, but others are just released [Harré/Madden] |
| 15305 | Some powers are variable, others cannot change (without destroying an identity) [Harré/Madden] |
| 15218 | Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden] |
| 15302 | We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden] |
| 15303 | Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden] |
| 15258 | Powers are not qualities; they just point to directions of empirical investigation [Harré/Madden] |
| 15315 | What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden] |
| 15272 | The good criticism of substance by Humeans also loses them the vital concept of a thing [Harré/Madden] |
| 15304 | We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden] |
| 15309 | The assumption that shape and solidity are fundamental implies dubious 'substance' in bodies [Harré/Madden] |
| 15264 | The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden] |
| 15262 | In logic the nature of a kind, substance or individual is the essence which is inseparable from what it is [Harré/Madden] |
| 15297 | We can infer a new property of a thing from its other properties, via its essential nature [Harré/Madden] |
| 15266 | We say the essence of particles is energy, but only so we can tell a story about the nature of things [Harré/Madden] |
| 15220 | To say something remains the same but lacks its capacities and powers seems a contradiction [Harré/Madden] |
| 15222 | Some individuals can gain or lose capacities or powers, without losing their identity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15296 | A particular might change all of its characteristics, retaining mere numerical identity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15275 | 'Dense' time raises doubts about continuous objects, so they need 'continuous' time [Harré/Madden] |
| 15271 | If things are successive instantaneous events, nothing requires those events to resemble one another [Harré/Madden] |
| 15256 | Humeans cannot step in the same river twice, because they cannot strictly form the concept of 'river' [Harré/Madden] |
| 15290 | What reduces the field of the possible is a step towards necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15291 | There is 'absolute' necessity (implied by all propositions) and 'relative' necessity (from what is given) [Harré/Madden] |
| 15230 | Logical necessity is grounded in the logical form of a statement [Harré/Madden] |
| 15221 | The relation between what a thing is and what it can do or undergo relate by natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15214 | Natural necessity is not logical necessity or empirical contingency in disguise [Harré/Madden] |
| 15224 | A necessity corresponds to the nature of the actual [Harré/Madden] |
| 15232 | Natural necessity is when powerful particulars must produce certain results in a situation [Harré/Madden] |
| 15288 | People doubt science because if it isn't logically necessary it seems to be absolutely contingent [Harré/Madden] |
| 15289 | Property or event relations are naturally necessary if generated by essential mechanisms [Harré/Madden] |
| 15231 | Transcendental necessity is conditions of a world required for a rational being to know its nature [Harré/Madden] |
| 15234 | There is a transcendental necessity for each logical necessity, but the transcendental extends further [Harré/Madden] |
| 15260 | Counterfactuals are just right for analysing statements about the powers which things have [Harré/Madden] |
| 15233 | If natural necessity is used to include or exclude some predicate, the predicate is conceptually necessary [Harré/Madden] |
| 15242 | Having a child is contingent for a 'man', necessary for a 'father'; the latter reflects a necessity of nature [Harré/Madden] |
| 15216 | Is conceptual necessity just conventional, or does it mirror something about nature? [Harré/Madden] |
| 15235 | There is a conceptual necessity when properties become a standard part of a nominal essence [Harré/Madden] |
| 15228 | Necessity and contingency are separate from the a priori and the a posteriori [Harré/Madden] |
| 15252 | If Goldbach's Conjecture is true (and logically necessary), we may be able to conceive its opposite [Harré/Madden] |
| 15245 | It is silly to say that direct experience must be justified, either by reason, or by more experience [Harré/Madden] |
| 7114 | The consciousness that says 'I think' is not the consciousness that thinks [Sartre] |
| 7112 | The Cogito depends on a second-order experience, of being conscious of consciousness [Sartre] |
| 7119 | Is the Cogito reporting an immediate experience of doubting, or the whole enterprise of doubting? [Sartre] |
| 20743 | Appearances do not hide the essence; appearances are the essence [Sartre] |
| 15244 | We experience qualities as of objects, not on their own [Harré/Madden] |
| 15248 | Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden] |
| 15269 | Humean impressions are too instantaneous and simple to have structure or relations [Harré/Madden] |
| 15286 | Clavius's Paradox: purely syntactic entailment theories won't explain, because they are too profuse [Harré/Madden] |
| 15283 | Simplicity can sort theories out, but still leaves an infinity of possibilities [Harré/Madden] |
| 15316 | The powers/natures approach has been so successful (for electricity, magnetism, gravity) it may be universal [Harré/Madden] |
| 15298 | We prefer the theory which explains and predicts the powers and capacities of particulars [Harré/Madden] |
| 15225 | Science investigates the nature and constitution of things or substances [Harré/Madden] |
| 15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
| 15255 | Conjunctions explain nothing, and so do not give a reason for confidence in inductions [Harré/Madden] |
| 15270 | Hume's atomic events makes properties independent, and leads to problems with induction [Harré/Madden] |
| 15284 | Contraposition may be equivalent in truth, but not true in nature, because of irrelevant predicates [Harré/Madden] |
| 15285 | The items put forward by the contraposition belong within different natural clusters [Harré/Madden] |
| 15287 | The possibility that all ravens are black is a law depends on a mechanism producing the blackness [Harré/Madden] |
| 15306 | Only changes require explanation [Harré/Madden] |
| 15293 | If explanation is by entailment, that lacks a causal direction, unlike natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15294 | Powers can explain the direction of causality, and make it a natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| 15254 | If the nature of particulars explains their powers, it also explains their relations and behaviour [Harré/Madden] |
| 15317 | Powers and natures lead us to hypothesise underlying mechanisms, which may be real [Harré/Madden] |
| 15310 | Solidity comes from the power of repulsion, and shape from the power of attraction [Harré/Madden] |
| 15219 | Essence explains passive capacities as well as active powers [Harré/Madden] |
| 7125 | A consciousness can conceive of no other consciousness than itself [Sartre] |
| 7122 | We can never, even in principle, grasp other minds, because the Ego is self-conceiving [Sartre] |
| 7108 | The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre] |
| 24016 | Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre] |
| 6151 | Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
| 7111 | Consciousness exists as consciousness of itself [Sartre] |
| 22226 | Since we are a consciousness, Sartre entirely rejected the unconscious mind [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| 7107 | Intentionality defines, transcends and unites consciousness [Sartre] |
| 15301 | The very concepts of a particular power or nature imply the possibility of being generalised [Harré/Madden] |
| 3847 | Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre] |
| 7109 | If you think of '2+2=4' as the content of thought, the self must be united transcendentally [Sartre] |
| 7106 | The Ego is not formally or materially part of consciousness, but is outside in the world [Sartre] |
| 7117 | How could two I's, the reflective and the reflected, communicate with each other? [Sartre] |
| 7123 | Knowing yourself requires an exterior viewpoint, which is necessarily false [Sartre] |
| 22225 | My ego is more intimate to me, but not more certain than other egos [Sartre] |
| 7116 | When we are unreflective (as when chasing a tram) there is no 'I' [Sartre] |
| 7124 | The Ego never appears except when we are not looking for it [Sartre] |
| 7120 | It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre] |
| 7110 | If the 'I' is transcendental, it unnecessarily splits consciousness in two [Sartre] |
| 7115 | Maybe it is the act of reflection that brings 'me' into existence [Sartre] |
| 7121 | The Ego only appears to reflection, so it is cut off from the World [Sartre] |
| 3846 | Man IS freedom [Sartre] |
| 24013 | An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre] |
| 24017 | Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre] |
| 24014 | Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre] |
| 24015 | Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre] |
| 6164 | Sartre rejects mental content, and the idea that the mind has hidden inner features [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
| 15226 | What properties a thing must have to be a type of substance can be laid down a priori [Harré/Madden] |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 15229 | We say there is 'no alternative' in all sorts of contexts, and there are many different grounds for it [Harré/Madden] |
| 7074 | Man is a useless passion [Sartre] |
| 3843 | There is no human nature [Sartre] |
| 6687 | Man is the desire to be God [Sartre] |
| 20762 | There are no values to justify us, and no excuses [Sartre] |
| 3852 | If values depend on us, freedom is the foundation of all values [Sartre] |
| 22228 | Sartre's freedom is not for whimsical action, but taking responsibility for our own values [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| 6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
| 22233 | Love is the demand to be loved [Sartre] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 20764 | In becoming what we want to be we create what we think man ought to be [Sartre] |
| 3848 | Cowards are responsible for their cowardice [Sartre] |
| 20763 | When my personal freedom becomes involved, I must want freedom for everyone else [Sartre] |
| 6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 22229 | Existentialists says that cowards and heroes make themselves [Sartre] |
| 20755 | Fear concerns the world, but 'anguish' comes from confronting my self [Sartre] |
| 3842 | Existence before essence (or begin with the subjective) [Sartre] |
| 6868 | 'Existence precedes essence' means we have no pre-existing self, but create it through existence [Sartre, by Le Poidevin] |
| 3844 | Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre] |
| 22232 | Authenticity is taking responsibility for a situation, with all its risks and emotions [Sartre] |
| 20760 | Sincerity is not authenticity, because it only commits to one particular identity [Sartre, by Aho] |
| 22231 | We flee from the anguish of freedom by seeing ourselves objectively, as determined [Sartre] |
| 20754 | It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre] |
| 22230 | Sartre gradually realised that freedom is curtailed by the weight of situation [Sartre, by Daigle] |
| 3851 | If I do not choose, that is still a choice [Sartre] |
| 6571 | When a man must choose between his mother and the Resistance, no theory can help [Sartre, by Fogelin] |
| 20491 | States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J] |
| 21240 | The truth about events always comes from the oppressed and disadvantaged [Sartre, by Bakewell] |
| 15292 | We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15299 | Species do not have enough constancy to be natural kinds [Harré/Madden] |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| 15253 | If the concept of a cause includes its usual effects, we call it a 'power' [Harré/Madden] |
| 15278 | Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden] |
| 15246 | Active causal power is just objects at work, not something existing in itself [Harré/Madden] |
| 15213 | Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden] |
| 15217 | Efficient causes combine stimulus to individuals, absence of contraints on activity [Harré/Madden] |
| 15277 | The cause (or part of it) is what stimulates or releases the powerful particular thing involved [Harré/Madden] |
| 15237 | Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden] |
| 15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
| 15223 | Necessary effects will follow from some general theory specifying powers and structure of a world [Harré/Madden] |
| 15241 | Humeans say there is no necessity in causation, because denying an effect is never self-contradictory [Harré/Madden] |
| 15240 | In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds [Harré/Madden] |
| 15239 | We could call any generalisation a law, if it had reasonable support and no counter-evidence [Harré/Madden] |
| 15243 | We perceive motion, and not just successive occupations of different positions [Harré/Madden] |
| 15280 | 'Kinetic energy' is used to explain the effects of moving things when they are stopped [Harré/Madden] |
| 15265 | 'Energy' is a quasi-substance invented as the bearer of change during interactions [Harré/Madden] |
| 15321 | Space can't be an individual (in space), but it is present in all places [Harré/Madden] |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
| 15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| 15263 | Chemistry is not purely structural; CO2 is not the same as SO2 [Harré/Madden] |
| 15259 | Chemical atoms have two powers: to enter certain combinations, and to emit a particular spectrum [Harré/Madden] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| 3845 | Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre] |
| 15295 | Theism is supposed to make the world more intelligible - and should offer results [Harré/Madden] |