59 ideas
| 16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
| 16241 | The metaphysics of nature should focus on physics [Maudlin] |
| 16257 | Kant survives in seeing metaphysics as analysing our conceptual system, which is a priori [Maudlin] |
| 16276 | Wide metaphysical possibility may reduce metaphysics to analysis of fantasies [Maudlin] |
| 16244 | If the universe is profligate, the Razor leads us astray [Maudlin] |
| 16255 | The Razor rightly prefers one cause of multiple events to coincidences of causes [Maudlin] |
| 16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
| 16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
| 16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| 16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
| 16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
| 16243 | The Humean view is wrong; laws and direction of time are primitive, and atoms are decided by physics [Maudlin] |
| 16271 | Lewis says it supervenes on the Mosaic, but actually thinks the Mosaic is all there is [Maudlin] |
| 16273 | If the Humean Mosaic is ontological bedrock, there can be no explanation of its structure [Maudlin] |
| 16275 | The 'spinning disc' is just impossible, because there cannot be 'homogeneous matter' [Maudlin] |
| 16258 | To get an ontology from ontological commitment, just add that some theory is actually true [Maudlin] |
| 16259 | Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology [Maudlin] |
| 16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
| 16253 | A property is fundamental if two objects can differ in only that respect [Maudlin] |
| 16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16263 | Fundamental physics seems to suggest there are no such things as properties [Maudlin] |
| 16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
| 16260 | Existence of universals may just be decided by acceptance, or not, of second-order logic [Maudlin] |
| 16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
| 16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
| 16277 | Logically impossible is metaphysically impossible, but logically possible is not metaphysically possible [Maudlin] |
| 16249 | A counterfactual antecedent commands the redescription of a selected moment [Maudlin] |
| 16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| 16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
| 16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
| 16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 16254 | Induction leaps into the unknown, but usually lands safely [Maudlin] |
| 16245 | Laws should help explain the things they govern, or that manifest them [Maudlin] |
| 16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
| 16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
| 16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
| 16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| 16248 | Evaluating counterfactuals involves context and interests [Maudlin] |
| 16250 | We don't pick a similar world from many - we construct one possibility from the description [Maudlin] |
| 16267 | If we know the cause of an event, we seem to assent to the counterfactual [Maudlin] |
| 16268 | The counterfactual is ruined if some other cause steps in when the antecedent fails [Maudlin] |
| 16269 | If the effect hadn't occurred the cause wouldn't have happened, so counterfactuals are two-way [Maudlin] |
| 16242 | Laws of nature are ontological bedrock, and beyond analysis [Maudlin] |
| 16247 | Laws are primitive, so two indiscernible worlds could have the same laws [Maudlin] |
| 16272 | Fundamental laws say how nature will, or might, evolve from some initial state [Maudlin] |
| 16251 | 'Humans with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law, because not a natural kind [Maudlin] |
| 16270 | If laws are just regularities, then there have to be laws [Maudlin] |
| 16264 | I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin] |
| 16265 | If time passes, presumably it passes at one second per second [Maudlin] |
| 16266 | There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin] |