130 ideas
| 11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
| 16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
| 9161 | Maybe reasonableness requires circular justifications - that is one coherentist view [Field,H] |
| 10825 | The notion of truth is to help us make use of the utterances of others [Field,H] |
| 10820 | In the early 1930s many philosophers thought truth was not scientific [Field,H] |
| 13499 | Tarski reduced truth to reference or denotation [Field,H, by Hart,WD] |
| 10818 | Tarski really explained truth in terms of denoting, predicating and satisfied functions [Field,H] |
| 10817 | Tarski just reduced truth to some other undefined semantic notions [Field,H] |
| 9570 | In Field's Platonist view, set theory is false because it asserts existence for non-existent things [Field,H, by Chihara] |
| 10260 | Logical consequence is defined by the impossibility of P and ¬q [Field,H, by Shapiro] |
| 11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
| 10819 | Tarski gives us the account of truth needed to build a group of true sentences in a model [Field,H] |
| 10827 | Model theory is unusual in restricting the range of the quantifiers [Field,H] |
| 6007 | If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6006 | If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6008 | Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 9226 | If mathematical theories conflict, it may just be that they have different subject matter [Field,H] |
| 8958 | In Field's version of science, space-time points replace real numbers [Field,H, by Szabó] |
| 17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
| 17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
| 18221 | 'Metric' axioms uses functions, points and numbers; 'synthetic' axioms give facts about space [Field,H] |
| 8757 | The Indispensability Argument is the only serious ground for the existence of mathematical entities [Field,H] |
| 18212 | Nominalists try to only refer to physical objects, or language, or mental constructions [Field,H] |
| 10261 | The application of mathematics only needs its possibility, not its truth [Field,H, by Shapiro] |
| 18218 | Hilbert explains geometry, by non-numerical facts about space [Field,H] |
| 9623 | Field needs a semantical notion of second-order consequence, and that needs sets [Brown,JR on Field,H] |
| 18215 | It seems impossible to explain the idea that the conclusion is contained in the premises [Field,H] |
| 18214 | Mathematics is only empirical as regards which theory is useful [Field,H] |
| 18216 | Abstractions can form useful counterparts to concrete statements [Field,H] |
| 8714 | Fictionalists say 2+2=4 is true in the way that 'Oliver Twist lived in London' is true [Field,H] |
| 18210 | Why regard standard mathematics as truths, rather than as interesting fictions? [Field,H] |
| 14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
| 16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
| 16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
| 18211 | You can reduce ontological commitment by expanding the logic [Field,H] |
| 16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 8959 | Field presumes properties can be eliminated from science [Field,H, by Szabó] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 18213 | Abstract objects are only applicable to the world if they are impure, and connect to the physical [Field,H] |
| 16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
| 16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
| 11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
| 11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
| 16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
| 11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
| 13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
| 16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
| 16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
| 16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
| 10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
| 14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
| 11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
| 11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
| 11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
| 16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
| 11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
| 11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
| 16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
| 11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
| 16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
| 11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
| 16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
| 16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
| 16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
| 11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
| 11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
| 11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
| 16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
| 16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
| 16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
| 11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
| 11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
| 16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
| 16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
| 11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
| 11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
| 16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| 11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
| 9160 | Lots of propositions are default reasonable, but the a priori ones are empirically indefeasible [Field,H] |
| 9164 | We treat basic rules as if they were indefeasible and a priori, with no interest in counter-evidence [Field,H] |
| 9165 | Reliability only makes a rule reasonable if we place a value on the truth produced by reliable processes [Field,H] |
| 9162 | Believing nothing, or only logical truths, is very reliable, but we want a lot more than that [Field,H] |
| 9166 | People vary in their epistemological standards, and none of them is 'correct' [Field,H] |
| 16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
| 9163 | If we only use induction to assess induction, it is empirically indefeasible, and hence a priori [Field,H] |
| 18222 | Beneath every extrinsic explanation there is an intrinsic explanation [Field,H] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 10826 | 'Valence' and 'gene' had to be reduced to show their compatibility with physicalism [Field,H] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
| 11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
| 16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
| 9917 | 'Abstract' is unclear, but numbers, functions and sets are clearly abstract [Field,H] |
| 22244 | 'Partial reference' is when the subject thinks two objects are one object [Field,H, by Recanati] |
| 7615 | Field says reference is a causal physical relation between mental states and objects [Field,H, by Putnam] |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| 8404 | Explain single events by general rules, or vice versa, or probability explains both, or they are unconnected [Field,H] |
| 8401 | Physical laws are largely time-symmetric, so they make a poor basis for directional causation [Field,H] |
| 8400 | Identifying cause and effect is not just conventional; we explain later events by earlier ones [Field,H] |
| 8402 | The only reason for adding the notion of 'cause' to fundamental physics is directionality [Field,H] |
| 18223 | In theories of fields, space-time points or regions are causal agents [Field,H] |
| 18220 | Both philosophy and physics now make substantivalism more attractive [Field,H] |
| 18219 | Relational space is problematic if you take the idea of a field seriously [Field,H] |