155 ideas
2319 | Metaphysics is the clarification of the ontological relationships between different areas of thought [Kim] |
3426 | If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world [Kim] |
19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
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] |
19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
4779 | For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Kim, by Psillos] |
10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
2317 | Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency [Kim, by PG] |
16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
3536 | Supervenient properties must have matching base properties [Kim] |
2310 | Supervenience is linked to dependence [Kim] |
2315 | Mereological supervenience says wholes are fixed by parts [Kim] |
16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
13745 | Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence [Kim] |
13746 | Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation [Kim] |
3431 | Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim] |
19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
2329 | Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal [Kim] |
3437 | 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan [Kim] |
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] |
19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
15456 | Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Kim, by Lewis] |
3430 | Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property [Kim] |
3432 | Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property? [Kim] |
3434 | Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things [Kim] |
2320 | Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents [Kim] |
17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
3436 | Should properties be individuated by their causal powers? [Kim] |
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] |
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] |
19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
3406 | Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [Kim, by PG] |
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] |
8825 | It seems impossible to logically deduce physical knowledge from indubitable sense data [Kim] |
530 | There are two contradictory arguments about everything [Kim] |
13314 | Protagoras says arguments on both sides are always equal [Kim, by Seneca] |
1550 | Why didn't Protagoras begin by saying "a tadpole is the measure of all things"? [Plato on Kim] |
2065 | Not every person is the measure of all things, but only wise people [Plato on Kim] |
14470 | Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event [Kim] |
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] |
3368 | Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim] |
3392 | Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim] |
3396 | Experiment requires mental causation [Kim] |
2318 | Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [Kim, by PG] |
3397 | Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim] |
3367 | Both thought and language have intentionality [Kim] |
3365 | Intentionality involves both reference and content [Kim] |
2325 | It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality [Kim] |
3360 | Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate? [Kim] |
3366 | Pain has no reference or content [Kim] |
3389 | Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional [Kim] |
3391 | Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [Kim, by PG] |
3422 | Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence [Kim] |
3412 | How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment? [Kim] |
3363 | We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing [Kim] |
3409 | Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete [Kim] |
3399 | If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness [Kim] |
3390 | Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas? [Kim] |
3414 | What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible? [Kim] |
3359 | Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation [Kim] |
3369 | Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim] |
3428 | Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim] |
3380 | Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation? [Kim] |
3370 | What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs? [Kim] |
3371 | Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together [Kim] |
3372 | Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states [Kim] |
3373 | Snakes have different pain behaviour from us [Kim] |
3388 | Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't [Kim] |
2324 | Intentionality as function seems possible [Kim] |
3379 | Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable [Kim] |
3384 | The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese [Kim] |
3393 | How do functional states give rise to mental causation? [Kim] |
3439 | Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim] |
3427 | Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim] |
2314 | Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't [Kim] |
3376 | We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties [Kim] |
3424 | Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists [Kim] |
2313 | Emergentism says there is no explanation for a supervenient property [Kim] |
2328 | The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia [Kim] |
3362 | Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible [Kim] |
3413 | Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience [Kim] |
2309 | Non-Reductive Physicalism relies on supervenience [Kim] |
2311 | Maybe strong supervenience implies reduction [Kim] |
3374 | Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim] |
3433 | The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain [Kim] |
3377 | Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation [Kim] |
3438 | Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim] |
3440 | Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim] |
2308 | Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies [Kim] |
2322 | Multiple realisation applies to other species, and even one individual over time [Kim] |
2327 | Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful [Kim] |
3375 | If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange? [Kim] |
3411 | How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another? [Kim] |
2323 | Emotions have both intentionality and qualia [Kim] |
3387 | A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling [Kim] |
3386 | Folk psychology has been remarkably durable [Kim] |
3410 | Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism [Kim] |
3394 | Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory [Kim] |
3382 | A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test [Kim] |
3383 | The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements [Kim] |
3408 | Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds [Kim] |
3420 | Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour [Kim] |
3418 | 'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful [Kim] |
3416 | Content may match several things in the environment [Kim] |
3421 | Content is best thought of as truth conditions [Kim] |
3417 | Content depends on other content as well as the facts [Kim] |
3419 | Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external [Kim] |
3403 | We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs [Kim] |
3402 | If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction [Kim] |
8430 | Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories [Kim] |
3535 | All observable causes are merely epiphenomena [Kim] |
3401 | A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law [Kim] |
8396 | Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Kim, by Tooley] |
8429 | Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation [Kim] |
8428 | Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals [Kim] |
3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
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] |
4781 | Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Kim, by Psillos] |
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] |