75 ideas
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| 14650 | Maybe proper names involve essentialism [Plantinga] |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| 14648 | Could I name all of the real numbers in one fell swoop? Call them all 'Charley'? [Plantinga] |
| 14664 | Necessary beings (numbers, properties, sets, propositions, states of affairs, God) exist in all possible worlds [Plantinga] |
| 16435 | Plantinga proposes necessary existent essences as surrogates for the nonexistent things [Plantinga, by Stalnaker] |
| 14655 | The 'identity criteria' of a name are a group of essential and established facts [Plantinga] |
| 14647 | Surely self-identity is essential to Socrates? [Plantinga] |
| 14658 | 'Being Socrates' and 'being identical with Socrates' characterise Socrates, so they are among his properties [Plantinga] |
| 13132 | A snowball's haecceity is the property of being identical with itself [Plantinga, by Westerhoff] |
| 12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
| 14666 | Socrates is a contingent being, but his essence is not; without Socrates, his essence is unexemplified [Plantinga] |
| 14656 | Does Socrates have essential properties, plus a unique essence (or 'haecceity') which entails them? [Plantinga] |
| 14646 | An object has a property essentially if it couldn't conceivably have lacked it [Plantinga] |
| 14654 | Properties are 'trivially essential' if they are instantiated by every object in every possible world [Plantinga] |
| 14653 | X is essentially P if it is P in every world, or in every X-world, or in the actual world (and not ¬P elsewhere) [Plantinga] |
| 14660 | If a property is ever essential, can it only ever be an essential property? [Plantinga] |
| 14661 | Essences are instantiated, and are what entails a thing's properties and lack of properties [Plantinga] |
| 14657 | Does 'being identical with Socrates' name a property? I can think of no objections to it [Plantinga] |
| 14642 | Expressing modality about a statement is 'de dicto'; expressing it of property-possession is 'de re' [Plantinga] |
| 14643 | 'De dicto' true and 'de re' false is possible, and so is 'de dicto' false and 'de re' true [Plantinga] |
| 14649 | Can we find an appropriate 'de dicto' paraphrase for any 'de re' proposition? [Plantinga] |
| 14652 | 'De re' modality is as clear as 'de dicto' modality, because they are logically equivalent [Plantinga] |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| 14659 | We can imagine being beetles or alligators, so it is possible we might have such bodies [Plantinga] |
| 11984 | Asserting a possible property is to say it would have had the property if that world had been actual [Plantinga] |
| 14662 | Possible worlds clarify possibility, propositions, properties, sets, counterfacts, time, determinism etc. [Plantinga] |
| 18383 | Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong] |
| 16472 | Plantinga's actualism is nominal, because he fills actuality with possibilia [Stalnaker on Plantinga] |
| 11980 | A possible world is a maximal possible state of affairs [Plantinga] |
| 14651 | What Socrates could have been, and could have become, are different? [Plantinga] |
| 11982 | If possible Socrates differs from actual Socrates, the Indiscernibility of Identicals says they are different [Plantinga] |
| 11983 | It doesn't matter that we can't identify the possible Socrates; we can't identify adults from baby photos [Plantinga] |
| 11985 | If individuals can only exist in one world, then they can never lack any of their properties [Plantinga] |
| 11891 | Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P] |
| 11986 | The counterparts of Socrates have self-identity, but only the actual Socrates has identity-with-Socrates [Plantinga] |
| 11987 | Counterpart Theory absurdly says I would be someone else if things went differently [Plantinga] |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| 6356 | Maybe a reliable justification must come from a process working with its 'proper function' [Plantinga, by Pollock/Cruz] |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| 9086 | The idea of abstract objects is not ontological; it comes from the epistemological idea of abstraction [Plantinga] |
| 9087 | Theists may see abstract objects as really divine thoughts [Plantinga] |
| 16469 | Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker] |
| 16470 | Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga] |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| 14663 | Are propositions and states of affairs two separate things, or only one? I incline to say one [Plantinga] |
| 9085 | If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths [Plantinga] |
| 9084 | Propositions can't just be in brains, because 'there are no human beings' might be true [Plantinga] |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| 20704 | A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B] |
| 1474 | Moral evil may be acceptable to God because it allows free will (even though we don't see why this is necessary) [Plantinga, by PG] |
| 1475 | It is logically possible that natural evil like earthquakes is caused by Satan [Plantinga, by PG] |