41 ideas
1922 | Spiritual qualities only become advantageous with the growth of wisdom [Plato] |
15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
11259 | How can you seek knowledge of something if you don't know it? [Plato] |
15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
20219 | True opinions only become really valuable when they are tied down by reasons [Plato] |
5985 | Seeking and learning are just recollection [Plato] |
5986 | The slave boy learns geometry from questioning, not teaching, so it is recollection [Plato] |
1923 | As a guide to action, true opinion is as good as knowledge [Plato] |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
1919 | You don't need to learn what you know, and how do you seek for what you don't know? [Plato] |
15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
1913 | Is virtue taught, or achieved by practice, or a natural aptitude, or what? [Plato] |
1921 | If virtue is a type of knowledge then it ought to be taught [Plato] |
1927 | It seems that virtue is neither natural nor taught, but is a divine gift [Plato] |
1918 | How can you know part of virtue without knowing the whole? [Plato] |
1916 | Even if virtues are many and various, they must have something in common to make them virtues [Plato] |
15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |