39 ideas
15169 | Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle] |
19335 | Reasonings have a natural ordering in God's understanding, but only a temporal order in ours [Leibniz] |
15164 | We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle] |
15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
15184 | Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle] |
15172 | Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle] |
15181 | Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle] |
15173 | That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle] |
15185 | We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle] |
15175 | Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle] |
3016 | Even the gods cannot strive against necessity [Pittacus, by Diog. Laertius] |
15032 | Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority [Sidelle, by Sider] |
15179 | To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary [Sidelle] |
15171 | The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence [Sidelle] |
15167 | Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths [Sidelle] |
15177 | Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable [Sidelle] |
15176 | The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle] |
15174 | A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle] |
15183 | 'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle] |
15165 | A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths [Sidelle] |
19367 | Saying we must will whatever we decide to will leads to an infinite regress [Leibniz] |
19351 | Perfections of soul subordinate the body, but imperfections of soul submit to the body [Leibniz] |
15168 | That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water' [Sidelle] |
15166 | Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open [Sidelle] |
15182 | Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle] |
19331 | Will is an inclination to pursue something good [Leibniz] |
19346 | Most people facing death would happily re-live a similar life, with just a bit of variety [Leibniz] |
19340 | Metaphysical evil is imperfection; physical evil is suffering; moral evil is sin [Leibniz] |
19366 | You can't assess moral actions without referring to the qualities of character that produce them [Leibniz] |
15178 | Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle] |
19326 | God must be intelligible, to select the actual world from the possibilities [Leibniz] |
19327 | The intelligent cause must be unique and all-perfect, to handle all the interconnected possibilities [Leibniz] |
19344 | God prefers men to lions, but might not exterminate lions to save one man [Leibniz] |
19330 | If justice is arbitrary, or fixed but not observed, or not human justice, this undermines God [Leibniz] |
19325 | God is the first reason of things; our experiences are contingent, and contain no necessity [Leibniz] |
19329 | The laws of physics are wonderful evidence of an intelligent and free being [Leibniz] |
19437 | Prayers are useful, because God foresaw them in his great plan [Leibniz] |
19337 | How can an all-good, wise and powerful being allow evil, sin and apparent injustice? [Leibniz] |
19345 | Being confident of God's goodness, we disregard the apparent local evils in the visible world [Leibniz] |