65 ideas
21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
18933 | Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius] |
16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
9866 | Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato] |
5864 | Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias] |
13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |