49 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |