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Ideas of Gideon Rosen, by Text

[American, fl. 2002, Professor at Princeton University.]

2001 Abstract Objects
'Non-spat' p.3 8912 Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things
'Non-spat' p.4 8913 Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time
'Non-spat' p.5 8914 Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf
'Way of Abs' p.7 8917 The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting
'Way of Abs' p.7 8918 Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation
'Way of Abs' p.9 8919 Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity
'Way of Con' p.6 8916 Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence
'Way of Ex' p.6 8915 How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things
2006 The Limits of Contingency
02 p.15 18848 Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity?
02 p.16 18850 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting
02 p.16 18849 Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant
04 p.18 18851 Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element
04 p.20 18852 A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties
05 p.23 18853 A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it
08 p.34 18854 The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world
08 p.36 18855 Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds
10 p.38 18857 Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds
10 p.38 18858 Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another
10 p.39 18856 Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things
2010 Metaphysical Dependence
01 p.109 14092 Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms
02 p.112 14093 An 'intrinsic' property is one that depends on a thing and its parts, and not on its relations
03 p.113 14094 The excellent notion of metaphysical 'necessity' cannot be defined
04 p.114 14095 Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients
05 p.116 14096 Explanations fail to be monotonic
07 n10 p.119 14097 Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items
10 p.124 14098 An acid is just a proton donor
10 p.124 14099 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around
10 p.125 14100 Figuring in the definition of a thing doesn't make it a part of that thing
13 p.133 14101 Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws?