30 ideas
| 13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
| 13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
| 15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
| 15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
| 15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
| 15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
| 17486 | Supervenience is simply modally robust property co-variance [Hendry] |
| 13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
| 15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
| 15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
| 13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
| 13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
| 17481 | Nuclear charge (plus laws) explains electron structure and spectrum, but not vice versa [Hendry] |
| 15152 | To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames] |
| 15153 | Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames] |
| 13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
| 13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
| 13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
| 15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |
| 22745 | Pherecydes said the first principle and element is earth [Pherecydes, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 17478 | Maybe two kinds are the same if there is no change of entropy on isothermal mixing [Hendry] |
| 17484 | Maybe the nature of water is macroscopic, and not in the microstructure [Hendry] |
| 17479 | The nature of an element must survive chemical change, so it is the nucleus, not the electrons [Hendry] |
| 17485 | Maybe water is the smallest part of it that still counts as water (which is H2O molecules) [Hendry] |
| 17482 | Compounds can differ with the same collection of atoms, so structure matters too [Hendry] |
| 17483 | Water continuously changes, with new groupings of molecules [Hendry] |
| 17476 | Elements survive chemical change, and are tracked to explain direction and properties [Hendry] |
| 17477 | Defining elements by atomic number allowed atoms of an element to have different masses [Hendry] |
| 17480 | Generally it is nuclear charge (not nuclear mass) which determines behaviour [Hendry] |
| 5883 | Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero] |