94 ideas
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
| 6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
| 6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
| 5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
| 6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| 5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| 6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
| 15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| 6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
| 6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
| 6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
| 6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
| 6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
| 6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
| 6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
| 5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
| 6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
| 6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
| 6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| 6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
| 15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| 7598 | Zoroaster and the Hebrew prophets evolved different versions of monotheism [Zoroaster, by Armstrong,K] |
| 7472 | Zarathustra was the first to present a god who is an abstract concept [Zoroaster] |
| 20672 | Zoroastrianism saw the world as a battle between good evil gods [Zoroaster, by Harari] |