99 ideas
9108 | From an impossibility anything follows [William of Ockham] |
16676 | Why use more things when fewer will do? [William of Ockham] |
6806 | Do not multiply entities beyond necessity [William of Ockham] |
14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
9107 | A proposition is true if its subject and predicate stand for the same thing [William of Ockham] |
16300 | Ockham had an early axiomatic account of truth [William of Ockham, by Halbach] |
8972 | What in the real world could ground the distinction between the sets {A,{A,B}} and {B,{A,B}}? [Inwagen] |
10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
9106 | The word 'every' only signifies when added to a term such as 'man', referring to all men [William of Ockham] |
17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
9113 | Just as unity is not a property of a single thing, so numbers are not properties of many things [William of Ockham] |
9110 | The words 'thing' and 'to be' assert the same idea, as a noun and as a verb [William of Ockham] |
17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
16608 | Ockham was an anti-realist about the categories [William of Ockham, by Pasnau] |
16654 | Our words and concepts don't always correspond to what is out there [William of Ockham] |
18529 | Relations are expressed either as absolute facts, or by a relational concept [William of Ockham] |
22132 | Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham] |
9103 | A universal is not a real feature of objects, but only a thought-object in the mind [William of Ockham] |
15388 | Universals are single things, and only universal in what they signify [William of Ockham] |
17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
16779 | Cut wood doesn't make a new substance, but seems to make separate subjects [William of Ockham] |
17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
16757 | Hot water naturally cools down, which is due to the substantial form of the water [William of Ockham] |
17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
16599 | Ockham says matter must be extended, so we don't need Quantity [William of Ockham, by Pasnau] |
16681 | Matter gets its quantity from condensation and rarefaction, which is just local motion [William of Ockham] |
17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
9109 | If essence and existence were two things, one could exist without the other, which is impossible [William of Ockham] |
17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
16792 | If parts change, the whole changes [William of Ockham] |
17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
9089 | Knowledge is a quality existing subjectively in the soul [William of Ockham] |
9091 | Sometimes 'knowledge' just concerns the conclusion, sometimes the whole demonstration [William of Ockham] |
9100 | Our intellect only assents to what we believe to be true [William of Ockham] |
9090 | Knowledge is certain cognition of something that is true [William of Ockham] |
1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
1547 | Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras] |
3305 | There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
3313 | If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
3317 | You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
247 | God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras] |
606 | Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
612 | Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
9101 | Abstractive cognition knows universals abstracted from many singulars [William of Ockham] |
9102 | If an animal approached from a distance, we might abstract 'animal' from one instance [William of Ockham] |
6981 | Determinism clashes with free will, as the past determines action, and is beyond our control [Inwagen, by Jackson] |
9114 | There are no secure foundations to prove the separate existence of mind, in reason or experience [William of Ockham] |
9104 | A universal is the result of abstraction, which is only a kind of mental picturing [William of Ockham] |
9105 | Some concepts for propositions exist only in the mind, and in no language [William of Ockham] |
6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
7101 | Virtue theory needs an external standard to judge behaviour and character [Inwagen, by Statman] |
205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
16675 | Every extended material substance is composed of parts distant from one another [William of Ockham] |
17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
19381 | The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham] |
17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
8010 | William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham] |
17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |
9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |
9115 | To love God means to love whatever God wills to be loved [William of Ockham] |
16679 | Even an angel must have some location [William of Ockham, by Pasnau] |