Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ontological Relativity' and 'How Things Might Have Been'

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27 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
21642 If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
1633 Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
18964 Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
11897 A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P]
11898 Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
11883 A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
11889 Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
11877 An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P]
11882 No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P]
11886 There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
11909 Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P]
11899 Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
11906 The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
11894 Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
18965 We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
11887 Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
11890 De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
11892 Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
11893 Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism
11884 The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
1634 Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
11905 Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
8470 Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
18963 Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 6. Necessity of Kinds
11907 Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]