88 ideas
| 8558 | One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker] |
| 8559 | Analysis aims at internal relationships, not reduction [Shoemaker] |
| 8594 | People have had good reasons for thinking that the circle has been squared [Shoemaker] |
| 15091 | Restrict 'logical truth' to formal logic, rather than including analytic and metaphysical truths [Shoemaker] |
| 22121 | The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 22122 | Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 16660 | Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate? [Duns Scotus, by Pasnau] |
| 8596 | Inability to measure equality doesn't make all lengths unequal [Shoemaker] |
| 8597 | We couldn't verify the earth's rotation if everyone simultaneously fell asleep [Shoemaker] |
| 16648 | Accidents must have formal being, if they are principles of real action, and of mental action and thought [Duns Scotus] |
| 15092 | Formerly I said properties are individuated by essential causal powers and causing instantiation [Shoemaker, by Shoemaker] |
| 15095 | A property's causal features are essential, and only they fix its identity [Shoemaker] |
| 15097 | I claim that a property has its causal features in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 8543 | Genuine properties are closely related to genuine changes [Shoemaker] |
| 8551 | Properties must be essentially causal if we can know and speak about them [Shoemaker] |
| 8557 | To ascertain genuine properties, examine the object directly [Shoemaker] |
| 15761 | We should abandon the idea that properties are the meanings of predicate expressions [Shoemaker] |
| 15756 | Some truths are not because of a thing's properties, but because of the properties of related things [Shoemaker] |
| 15758 | Things have powers in virtue of (which are entailed by) their properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8547 | One power can come from different properties; a thing's powers come from its properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8549 | Properties are functions producing powers, and powers are functions producing effects [Shoemaker] |
| 15094 | I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker] |
| 12678 | Shoemaker says all genuine properties are dispositional [Shoemaker, by Ellis] |
| 8545 | A causal theory of properties focuses on change, not (say) on abstract properties of numbers [Shoemaker] |
| 15757 | 'Square', 'round' and 'made of copper' show that not all properties are dispositional [Shoemaker] |
| 15759 | The identity of a property concerns its causal powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15760 | Properties are clusters of conditional powers [Shoemaker] |
| 15762 | Could properties change without the powers changing, or powers change without the properties changing? [Shoemaker] |
| 8552 | If properties are separated from causal powers, this invites total elimination [Shoemaker] |
| 4040 | The notions of property and of causal power are parts of a single system of related concepts [Shoemaker] |
| 15765 | Actually, properties are individuated by causes as well as effects [Shoemaker] |
| 14534 | Shoemaker moved from properties as powers to properties bestowing powers [Shoemaker, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 8548 | Dispositional predicates ascribe powers, and the rest ascribe properties [Shoemaker] |
| 9485 | Universals concern how things are, and how they could be [Shoemaker, by Bird] |
| 22125 | Duns Scotus was a realist about universals [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 15386 | If only the singular exists, science is impossible, as that relies on true generalities [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
| 15387 | If things were singular they would only differ numerically, but horse and tulip differ more than that [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
| 8550 | Triangular and trilateral are coextensive, but different concepts; but powers and properties are the same [Shoemaker] |
| 16632 | We distinguish one thing from another by contradiction, because this is, and that is not [Duns Scotus] |
| 22127 | Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 13094 | The haecceity is the featureless thing which gives ultimate individuality to a substance [Duns Scotus, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 16650 | 'Unity' is a particularly difficult word, because things can have hidden unity [Duns Scotus] |
| 472 | No things would be clear to us as entity or relationships unless there existed Number and its essence [Philolaus] |
| 16770 | It is absurd that there is no difference between a genuinely unified thing, and a mere aggregate [Duns Scotus] |
| 16776 | Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus] |
| 16626 | Substance is only grasped under the general heading of 'being' [Duns Scotus] |
| 16614 | Matter and form give true unity; subject and accident is just unity 'per accidens' [Duns Scotus] |
| 10919 | What prevents a stone from being divided into parts which are still the stone? [Duns Scotus] |
| 22126 | Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 8555 | There is no subset of properties which guarantee a thing's identity [Shoemaker] |
| 16768 | Two things are different if something is true of one and not of the other [Duns Scotus] |
| 15099 | If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker] |
| 8554 | Possible difference across worlds depends on difference across time in the actual world [Shoemaker] |
| 15101 | Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker] |
| 15764 | 'Conceivable' is either not-provably-false, or compatible with what we know? [Shoemaker] |
| 15098 | Empirical evidence shows that imagining a phenomenon can show it is possible [Shoemaker] |
| 15100 | Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker] |
| 8562 | It is possible to conceive what is not possible [Shoemaker] |
| 22129 | Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 22130 | Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 22128 | Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 5691 | The adverbial account of sensation says not 'see a red image' but be 'appeared to redly' [Shoemaker] |
| 8593 | Maybe billions of changeless years have elapsed since my last meal [Shoemaker] |
| 15096 | 'Grue' only has causal features because of its relation to green [Shoemaker] |
| 8556 | Grueness is not, unlike green and blue, associated with causal potential [Shoemaker] |
| 5687 | For true introspection, must we be aware that we are aware of our mental events? [Shoemaker] |
| 5688 | Empirical foundationalism says basic knowledge is self-intimating, and incorrigible or infallible [Shoemaker] |
| 1389 | If memory is the sole criterion of identity, we ought to use it for other people too [Shoemaker] |
| 1390 | Bodily identity is one criterion and memory another, for personal identity [Shoemaker, by PG] |
| 22131 | The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 22511 | Some reasonings are stronger than we are [Philolaus] |
| 1518 | Everything must involve numbers, or it couldn't be thought about or known [Philolaus] |
| 1519 | Harmony must pre-exist the cosmos, to bring the dissimilar sources together [Philolaus] |
| 473 | There is no falsehood in harmony and number, only in irrational things [Philolaus] |
| 469 | Existing things, and hence the Cosmos, are a mixture of the Limited and the Unlimited [Philolaus] |
| 8542 | If causality is between events, there must be reference to the properties involved [Shoemaker] |
| 8598 | If things turn red for an hour and then explode, we wouldn't say the redness was the cause [Shoemaker] |
| 15093 | We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker] |
| 476 | Self-created numbers make the universe stable [Philolaus] |
| 8560 | If causal laws describe causal potentialities, the same laws govern properties in all possible worlds [Shoemaker] |
| 15763 | If properties are causal, then causal necessity is a species of logical necessity [Shoemaker] |
| 8561 | If a world has different causal laws, it must have different properties [Shoemaker] |
| 8553 | It looks as if the immutability of the powers of a property imply essentiality [Shoemaker] |
| 4226 | If three regions 'freeze' every three, four and five years, after sixty years everything stops for a year [Shoemaker, by Lowe] |
| 8595 | If three regions freeze every 3rd, 4th and 5th year, they all freeze together every 60 years [Shoemaker] |
| 1787 | Philolaus was the first person to say the earth moves in a circle [Philolaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 22123 | The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| 22124 | We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |