57 ideas
| 2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| 2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
| 2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
| 22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
| 22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
| 2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
| 22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
| 22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
| 22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
| 22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| 22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
| 22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
| 22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
| 2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
| 2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
| 2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
| 2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
| 2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
| 2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
| 2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
| 2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
| 2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
| 2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
| 16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
| 2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
| 4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
| 4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
| 4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
| 22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
| 22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
| 22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
| 22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
| 22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
| 22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
| 22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
| 2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
| 22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
| 22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
| 22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
| 22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
| 22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
| 1558 | Clearly the gods ignore human affairs, or they would have given us justice [Thrasymachus] |