51 ideas
18889 | Ostensive definitions needn't involve pointing, but must refer to something specific [Salmon,N] |
14684 | A world is 'accessible' to another iff the first is possible according to the second [Salmon,N] |
14669 | For metaphysics, T may be the only correct system of modal logic [Salmon,N] |
14667 | System B has not been justified as fallacy-free for reasoning on what might have been [Salmon,N] |
14668 | In B it seems logically possible to have both p true and p is necessarily possibly false [Salmon,N] |
14692 | System B implies that possibly-being-realized is an essential property of the world [Salmon,N] |
14671 | What is necessary is not always necessarily necessary, so S4 is fallacious [Salmon,N] |
14627 | S4, and therefore S5, are invalid for metaphysical modality [Salmon,N, by Williamson] |
14686 | S5 modal logic ignores accessibility altogether [Salmon,N] |
14691 | S5 believers say that-things-might-have-been-that-way is essential to ways things might have been [Salmon,N] |
14693 | The unsatisfactory counterpart-theory allows the retention of S5 [Salmon,N] |
14670 | Metaphysical (alethic) modal logic concerns simple necessity and possibility (not physical, epistemic..) [Salmon,N] |
20457 | Zeno assumes collecting an infinity of things makes an infinite thing [Rovelli] |
20468 | Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli] |
20467 | Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli] |
14742 | It can't be indeterminate whether x and y are identical; if x,y is indeterminate, then it isn't x,x [Salmon,N] |
594 | Speusippus suggested underlying principles for every substance, and ended with a huge list [Speussipus, by Aristotle] |
18888 | Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist [Salmon,N] |
14678 | Any property is attached to anything in some possible world, so I am a radical anti-essentialist [Salmon,N] |
14680 | Logical possibility contains metaphysical possibility, which contains nomological possibility [Salmon,N] |
14690 | In the S5 account, nested modalities may be unseen, but they are still there [Salmon,N] |
14677 | Metaphysical necessity is said to be unrestricted necessity, true in every world whatsoever [Salmon,N] |
14679 | Bizarre identities are logically but not metaphysically possible, so metaphysical modality is restricted [Salmon,N] |
14688 | Without impossible worlds, the unrestricted modality that is metaphysical has S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
14685 | Metaphysical necessity is NOT truth in all (unrestricted) worlds; necessity comes first, and is restricted [Salmon,N] |
14681 | Logical necessity is free of constraints, and may accommodate all of S5 logic [Salmon,N] |
14676 | Nomological necessity is expressed with intransitive relations in modal semantics [Salmon,N] |
14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
14674 | Impossible worlds are also ways for things to be [Salmon,N] |
14682 | Denial of impossible worlds involves two different confusions [Salmon,N] |
14687 | Without impossible worlds, how things might have been is the only way for things to be [Salmon,N] |
14683 | Possible worlds rely on what might have been, so they can' be used to define or analyse modality [Salmon,N] |
14672 | Possible worlds are maximal abstract ways that things might have been [Salmon,N] |
14675 | Possible worlds just have to be 'maximal', but they don't have to be consistent [Salmon,N] |
14673 | You can't define worlds as sets of propositions, and then define propositions using worlds [Salmon,N] |
18886 | Frege's 'sense' solves four tricky puzzles [Salmon,N] |
18887 | The perfect case of direct reference is a variable which has been assigned a value [Salmon,N] |
18885 | Kripke and Putnam made false claims that direct reference implies essentialism [Salmon,N] |
20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |
20461 | The basic ideas of fields and particles are merged in quantum mechanics [Rovelli] |
18891 | Nothing in the direct theory of reference blocks anti-essentialism; water structure might have been different [Salmon,N] |
20462 | Because it is quantised, a field behaves like a set of packets of energy [Rovelli] |
20463 | There are about fifteen particles fields, plus a few force fields [Rovelli] |
20464 | The world consists of quantum fields, with elementary events happening in spacetime [Rovelli] |
20459 | Electrons only exist when they interact, and their being is their combination of quantum leaps [Rovelli] |
20460 | Electrons are not waves, because their collisions are at a point, and not spread out [Rovelli] |
20466 | Quantum Theory describes events and possible interactions - not how things are [Rovelli] |
20465 | Nature has three aspects: granularity, indeterminacy, and relations [Rovelli] |
20458 | The world is just particles plus fields; space is the gravitational field [Rovelli] |
20470 | Only heat distinguishes past from future [Rovelli] |
2632 | Speusippus said things were governed by some animal force rather than the gods [Speussipus, by Cicero] |