93 ideas
6123 | Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour [Merricks] |
224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
6143 | Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time [Merricks] |
12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
6135 | A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks] |
8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
6145 | Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists [Merricks] |
1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
6124 | I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist [Merricks] |
6134 | Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts? [Merricks] |
6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
14229 | Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics [Merricks, by Liggins] |
6142 | The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways [Merricks] |
14472 | If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it [Merricks, by Thomasson] |
14469 | Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage [Merricks] |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
6137 | Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing) [Merricks] |
15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
6141 | There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise [Merricks] |
6127 | 'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing [Merricks] |
6131 | Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things [Merricks] |
6132 | Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts [Merricks] |
6130 | 'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object [Merricks] |
6138 | It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located [Merricks] |
15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
6128 | Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks] |
13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
6136 | Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox [Merricks] |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
6150 | The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge [Merricks] |
6144 | You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software [Merricks] |
6140 | Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons [Merricks] |
6149 | Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice [Merricks] |
6148 | Human organisms can exercise downward causation [Merricks] |
6147 | The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties [Merricks] |
6146 | Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties [Merricks] |
1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |