280 ideas
| 7623 | For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam] |
| 18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
| 2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
| 18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
| 18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
| 18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
| 7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
| 6782 | Realism is the only philosophy of science that doesn't make the success of science a miracle [Putnam] |
| 4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
| 6267 | A culture needs to admit that knowledge is more extensive than just 'science' [Putnam] |
| 6272 | 'True' and 'refers' cannot be made scientically precise, but are fundamental to science [Putnam] |
| 7038 | A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil] |
| 7037 | Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil] |
| 6276 | 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam] |
| 4714 | Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
| 18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
| 7004 | The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil] |
| 6266 | We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam] |
| 7617 | Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam] |
| 6277 | Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible [Putnam] |
| 4716 | The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 8828 | Truth is rational acceptability [Putnam] |
| 7616 | Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam] |
| 18951 | For scientific purposes there is a precise concept of 'true-in-L', using set theory [Putnam] |
| 6264 | In Tarski's definition, you understand 'true' if you accept the notions of the object language [Putnam] |
| 6265 | Tarski has given a correct account of the formal logic of 'true', but there is more to the concept [Putnam] |
| 6269 | Only Tarski has found a way to define 'true' [Putnam] |
| 2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
| 2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
| 18953 | Modern notation frees us from Aristotle's restriction of only using two class-names in premises [Putnam] |
| 18949 | The universal syllogism is now expressed as the transitivity of subclasses [Putnam] |
| 18952 | '⊃' ('if...then') is used with the definition 'Px ⊃ Qx' is short for '¬(Px & ¬Qx)' [Putnam] |
| 18958 | In type theory, 'x ∈ y' is well defined only if x and y are of the appropriate type [Putnam] |
| 9944 | We understand some statements about all sets [Putnam] |
| 13655 | The Löwenheim-Skolem theorems show that whether all sets are constructible is indeterminate [Putnam, by Shapiro] |
| 9915 | V = L just says all sets are constructible [Putnam] |
| 7035 | God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil] |
| 18954 | Before the late 19th century logic was trivialised by not dealing with relations [Putnam] |
| 18956 | Asserting first-order validity implicitly involves second-order reference to classes [Putnam] |
| 18962 | Unfashionably, I think logic has an empirical foundation [Putnam] |
| 10066 | Putnam coined the term 'if-thenism' [Putnam, by Musgrave] |
| 18961 | We can identify functions with certain sets - or identify sets with certain functions [Putnam] |
| 17505 | Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions [Putnam] |
| 18955 | Having a valid form doesn't ensure truth, as it may be meaningless [Putnam] |
| 14203 | Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam] |
| 14207 | If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam] |
| 9913 | The Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem is close to an antinomy in philosophy of language [Putnam] |
| 18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
| 18959 | Sets larger than the continuum should be studied in an 'if-then' spirit [Putnam] |
| 18200 | Very large sets should be studied in an 'if-then' spirit [Putnam] |
| 9937 | I do not believe mathematics either has or needs 'foundations' [Putnam] |
| 9939 | It is conceivable that the axioms of arithmetic or propositional logic might be changed [Putnam] |
| 18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
| 3663 | How can you contemplate Platonic entities without causal transactions with them? [Putnam] |
| 9940 | Maybe mathematics is empirical in that we could try to change it [Putnam] |
| 9914 | It is unfashionable, but most mathematical intuitions come from nature [Putnam] |
| 9941 | Science requires more than consistency of mathematics [Putnam] |
| 18199 | Indispensability strongly supports predicative sets, and somewhat supports impredicative sets [Putnam] |
| 8857 | We must quantify over numbers for science; but that commits us to their existence [Putnam] |
| 7017 | The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil] |
| 18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
| 4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
| 7003 | There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil] |
| 6280 | Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam] |
| 17644 | Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam] |
| 2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
| 7045 | Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil] |
| 7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
| 9943 | You can't deny a hypothesis a truth-value simply because we may never know it! [Putnam] |
| 22181 | Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions [Putnam, by Okasha] |
| 14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
| 17648 | It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam] |
| 14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
| 7610 | A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam] |
| 18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
| 18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
| 18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
| 7020 | Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil] |
| 21339 | We want the ontology of relations, not just a formal way of specifying them [Heil] |
| 21349 | Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil] |
| 21340 | Maybe all the other features of the world can be reduced to relations [Heil] |
| 18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
| 21348 | In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil] |
| 21351 | Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil] |
| 21344 | If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil] |
| 18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
| 18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
| 4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
| 4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
| 18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
| 4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
| 18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
| 4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
| 7007 | I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil] |
| 18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
| 4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
| 7015 | A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil] |
| 18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
| 18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
| 7618 | Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam] |
| 7042 | A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil] |
| 4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
| 7023 | Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil] |
| 21350 | If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil] |
| 18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
| 18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
| 7025 | Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil] |
| 7034 | Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil] |
| 7039 | How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil] |
| 18957 | Nominalism only makes sense if it is materialist [Putnam] |
| 7009 | Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil] |
| 7041 | Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil] |
| 7032 | Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil] |
| 2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
| 7008 | Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil] |
| 7018 | Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil] |
| 18950 | Physics is full of non-physical entities, such as space-vectors [Putnam] |
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| 7019 | Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil] |
| 7046 | Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil] |
| 7047 | Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil] |
| 7048 | Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil] |
| 17643 | Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam] |
| 18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
| 18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
| 18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
| 18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
| 11908 | Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam] |
| 18890 | Putnam smuggles essentialism about liquids into his proof that water must be H2O [Salmon,N on Putnam] |
| 4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
| 4718 | If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 10269 | Mathematics eliminates possibility, as being simultaneous actuality in sets [Putnam] |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| 9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
| 5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
| 4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| 4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
| 6284 | If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam] |
| 7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
| 7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
| 7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
| 7051 | Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil] |
| 7044 | Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil] |
| 7052 | Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil] |
| 7053 | Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil] |
| 17642 | The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam] |
| 6273 | Knowledge depends on believing others, which must be innate, as inferences are not strong enough [Putnam] |
| 6274 | Empathy may not give knowledge, but it can give plausibility or right opinion [Putnam] |
| 7620 | Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam] |
| 7066 | If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil] |
| 18960 | Most predictions are uninteresting, and are only sought in order to confirm a theory [Putnam] |
| 7021 | If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil] |
| 17508 | Science aims at truth, not at 'simplicity' [Putnam] |
| 7026 | Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil] |
| 14204 | Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam] |
| 7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
| 17084 | You can't decide which explanations are good if you don't attend to the interest-relative aspects [Putnam] |
| 4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
| 4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
| 4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
| 4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
| 4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
| 7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
| 7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
| 7705 | The Twin Earth theory suggests that intentionality is independent of qualia [Jacquette on Putnam] |
| 7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
| 18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
| 18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
| 4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
| 4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
| 7061 | Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil] |
| 7063 | Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil] |
| 7064 | Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil] |
| 2590 | Dispositions need mental terms to define them [Putnam] |
| 4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
| 3460 | Superactors and superspartans count against behaviourism [Putnam, by Searle] |
| 2591 | Total paralysis would mean that there were mental states but no behaviour at all [Putnam] |
| 4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
| 2589 | Functionalism is compatible with dualism, as pure mind could perform the functions [Putnam] |
| 7027 | Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil] |
| 2588 | Is pain a functional state of a complete organism? [Putnam] |
| 2592 | Functional states correlate with AND explain pain behaviour [Putnam] |
| 5495 | Instances of pain are physical tokens, but the nature of pain is more abstract [Putnam, by Lycan] |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| 4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
| 2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
| 2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
| 4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
| 7062 | Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil] |
| 2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| 2587 | Temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy, but they are two different concepts [Putnam] |
| 4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
| 7059 | The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil] |
| 4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
| 4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
| 2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
| 4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
| 7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
| 4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
| 4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
| 4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
| 7043 | Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil] |
| 6376 | Neuroscience does not support multiple realisability, and tends to support identity [Polger on Putnam] |
| 2330 | If humans and molluscs both feel pain, it can't be a single biological state [Putnam, by Kim] |
| 4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
| 4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
| 18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
| 4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| 7611 | Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam] |
| 18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
| 18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
| 2605 | If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam] |
| 2606 | No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam] |
| 4099 | If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head [Putnam, by Crane] |
| 12026 | We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam] |
| 3208 | Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'? [Putnam, by Rey] |
| 14200 | 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam] |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| 9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
| 5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
| 7612 | Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam] |
| 7058 | Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil] |
| 7057 | Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil] |
| 7613 | Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam] |
| 6282 | Theory of meaning presupposes theory of understanding and reference [Putnam] |
| 2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
| 7013 | The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil] |
| 6281 | Truth conditions can't explain understanding a sentence, because that in turn needs explanation [Putnam] |
| 6278 | We should reject the view that truth is prior to meaning [Putnam] |
| 4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
| 2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
| 4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
| 2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
| 2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
| 2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
| 6271 | How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam] |
| 2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
| 2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
| 17506 | I now think reference by the tests of experts is a special case of being causally connected [Putnam] |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| 14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
| 9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
| 14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| 3893 | Often reference determines sense, and not (as Frege thought) vice versa [Putnam, by Scruton] |
| 6268 | The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam] |
| 18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
| 4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
| 7002 | If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil] |
| 5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
| 6279 | A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning [Putnam] |
| 6270 | The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam] |
| 6283 | Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam] |
| 14206 | There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam] |
| 6275 | You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam] |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| 7624 | The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam] |
| 18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 11191 | The hidden structure of a natural kind determines membership in all possible worlds [Putnam] |
| 17507 | Natural kind stereotypes are 'strong' (obvious, like tiger) or 'weak' (obscure, like molybdenum) [Putnam] |
| 11904 | Express natural kinds as a posteriori predicate connections, not as singular terms [Putnam, by Mackie,P] |
| 2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |
| 18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
| 17645 | An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 7016 | The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil] |
| 11192 | If causes are the essence of diseases, then disease is an example of a relational essence [Putnam, by Williams,NE] |
| 11190 | Archimedes meant by 'gold' the hidden structure or essence of the stuff [Putnam] |
| 5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |
| 18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
| 18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
| 7036 | The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil] |