83 ideas
| 7910 | Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 7871 | Perceptual concepts can't just refer to what causes classification [Papineau] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 7852 | The only serious mind-brain theories now are identity, token identity, realization and supervenience [Papineau] |
| 7864 | Maybe mind and body do overdetermine acts, but are linked (for some reason) [Papineau] |
| 7873 | Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau] |
| 7874 | Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau] |
| 7882 | Researching phenomenal consciousness is peculiar, because the concepts involved are peculiar [Papineau] |
| 7854 | Whether octopuses feel pain is unclear, because our phenomenal concepts are too vague [Papineau] |
| 7889 | Our concept of consciousness is crude, and lacks theoretical articulation [Papineau] |
| 7891 | We can’t decide what 'conscious' means, so it is undecidable whether cats are conscious [Papineau] |
| 7890 | Maybe a creature is conscious if its mental states represent things in a distinct way [Papineau] |
| 7885 | The 'actualist' HOT theory says consciousness comes from actual higher judgements of mental states [Papineau] |
| 7886 | Actualist HOT theories imply that a non-conscious mental event could become conscious when remembered [Papineau] |
| 7887 | States are conscious if they could be the subject of higher-order mental judgements [Papineau] |
| 7888 | Higher-order judgements may be possible where the subject denies having been conscious [Papineau] |
| 7860 | The epiphenomenal relation of mind and brain is a 'causal dangler', unlike anything else [Papineau] |
| 7862 | Maybe minds do not cause actions, but do cause us to report our decisions [Papineau] |
| 7870 | Role concepts either name the realising property, or the higher property constituting the role [Papineau] |
| 7858 | If causes are basic particulars, this doesn't make conscious and physical properties identical [Papineau] |
| 7865 | Supervenience can be replaced by identifying mind with higher-order or disjunctional properties [Papineau] |
| 7892 | The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau] |
| 7879 | Mind-brain reduction is less explanatory, because phenomenal concepts lack causal roles [Papineau] |
| 20971 | Weak reduction of mind is to physical causes; strong reduction is also to physical laws [Papineau] |
| 7856 | It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau] |
| 7881 | Accept ontological monism, but conceptual dualism; we think in a different way about phenomenal thought [Papineau] |
| 7866 | Mary acquires new concepts; she previously thought about the same property using material concepts [Papineau] |
| 7850 | Thinking about a thing doesn't require activating it [Papineau] |
| 7851 | Consciousness affects bodily movement, so thoughts must be material states [Papineau] |
| 7884 | Most reductive accounts of representation imply broad content [Papineau] |
| 7863 | If content hinges on matters outside of you, how can it causally influence your actions? [Papineau] |
| 7883 | Verificationists tend to infer indefinite answers from undecidable questions [Papineau] |
| 7872 | Teleosemantics equates meaning with the item the concept is intended to track [Papineau] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 7869 | Truth conditions in possible worlds can't handle statements about impossibilities [Papineau] |
| 7868 | Thought content is possible worlds that make the thought true; if that includes the actual world, it's true [Papineau] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 7853 | Causation is based on either events, or facts, or states of affairs [Papineau] |
| 7857 | Causes are instantiations of properties by particulars, or they are themselves basic particulars [Papineau] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 20974 | Modern biological research, especially into the cell, has revealed no special new natural forces [Papineau] |
| 20970 | Determinism is possible without a complete physics, if mental forces play a role [Papineau] |
| 20976 | The completeness of physics cannot be proved [Papineau] |
| 20975 | Quantum 'wave collapses' seem to violate conservation of energy [Papineau] |
| 7909 | The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha] |
| 7908 | At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha] |