70 ideas
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| 6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
| 9038 | We must distinguish what the speaker denotes by a name, from what the name denotes [Evans] |
| 5824 | How can an expression be a name, if names can change their denotation? [Evans] |
| 9042 | A private intention won't give a name a denotation; the practice needs it to be made public [Evans] |
| 9041 | The Causal Theory of Names is wrong, since the name 'Madagascar' actually changed denotation [Evans] |
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| 6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
| 6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
| 6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
| 5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
| 16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16129 | Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe] |
| 16459 | Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans] |
| 16457 | There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis] |
| 16460 | Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis] |
| 6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| 14484 | If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson] |
| 16224 | There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG] |
| 5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
| 14895 | 'Superficial' contingency: false in some world; 'Deep' contingency: no obvious verification [Evans, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| 11881 | Rigid designators can be meaningful even if empty [Evans, by Mackie,P] |
| 6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
| 7639 | The Homunculus Fallacy explains a subject perceiving objects by repeating the problem internally [Evans] |
| 12580 | Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco] |
| 7643 | We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans] |
| 6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
| 6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
| 6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
| 6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
| 6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
| 6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
| 6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
| 6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
| 5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
| 6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
| 6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
| 6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
| 23794 | Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte] |
| 16366 | The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans] |
| 12575 | Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke] |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| 5825 | Speakers intend to refer to items that are the source of their information [Evans] |
| 5823 | The intended referent of a name needs to be the cause of the speaker's information about it [Evans] |
| 9039 | If descriptions are sufficient for reference, then I must accept a false reference if the descriptions fit [Evans] |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| 9043 | We use expressions 'deferentially', to conform to the use of other people [Evans] |
| 9040 | Charity should minimize inexplicable error, rather than maximising true beliefs [Evans] |
| 6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
| 6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |