64 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
15169 | Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it) [Sidelle] |
10308 | Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
10314 | An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase [Hale] |
15164 | We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination [Sidelle] |
13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
10316 | We should decide whether singular terms are genuine by their usage [Hale] |
10312 | Often the same singular term does not ensure reliable inference [Hale] |
10313 | Plenty of clear examples have singular terms with no ontological commitment [Hale] |
10322 | If singular terms can't be language-neutral, then we face a relativity about their objects [Hale] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
10512 | The abstract/concrete distinction is based on what is perceivable, causal and located [Hale] |
10517 | Colours and points seem to be both concrete and abstract [Hale] |
10519 | The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names [Hale] |
10520 | Token-letters and token-words are concrete objects, type-letters and type-words abstract [Hale] |
10524 | There is a hierarchy of abstraction, based on steps taken by equivalence relations [Hale] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
15180 | There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts [Sidelle] |
10521 | If F can't have location, there is no problem of things having F in different locations [Hale] |
10511 | It is doubtful if one entity, a universal, can be picked out by both predicates and abstract nouns [Hale] |
10318 | Realists take universals to be the referrents of both adjectives and of nouns [Hale] |
10310 | Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated [Hale] |
10518 | Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not [Hale] |
10513 | Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal [Hale] |
10514 | If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract [Hale] |
10523 | Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated [Hale] |
10307 | The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage [Hale] |
10315 | We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?' [Hale] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
15184 | Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle] |
13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
15172 | Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties [Sidelle] |
15181 | Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property [Sidelle] |
13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
15173 | That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery [Sidelle] |
10522 | The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations [Hale] |
10321 | We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale] |
15185 | We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it [Sidelle] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
15175 | Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects [Sidelle] |
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] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
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] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
15178 | Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers? [Sidelle] |
13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |