67 ideas
| 7950 | Philosophy tries to explain how the actual is possible, given that it seems impossible [Macdonald,C] |
| 8605 | In addition to analysis of a concept, one can deny it, or accept it as primitive [Lewis] |
| 7923 | 'Did it for the sake of x' doesn't involve a sake, so how can ontological commitments be inferred? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7933 | Don't assume that a thing has all the properties of its parts [Macdonald,C] |
| 7944 | Reduce by bridge laws (plus property identities?), by elimination, or by reducing talk [Macdonald,C] |
| 8607 | Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability [Lewis] |
| 8606 | A supervenience thesis is a denial of independent variation [Lewis] |
| 8580 | Materialism is (roughly) that two worlds cannot differ without differing physically [Lewis] |
| 7938 | Relational properties are clearly not essential to substances [Macdonald,C] |
| 7967 | Being taller is an external relation, but properties and substances have internal relations [Macdonald,C] |
| 8571 | Universals are wholly present in their instances, whereas properties are spread around [Lewis] |
| 10717 | Natural properties figure in the analysis of similarity in intrinsic respects [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 16217 | Lewisian natural properties fix reference of predicates, through a principle of charity [Lewis, by Hawley] |
| 8585 | Reference partly concerns thought and language, partly eligibility of referent by natural properties [Lewis] |
| 8613 | Objects are demarcated by density and chemistry, and natural properties belong in what is well demarcated [Lewis] |
| 8586 | Natural properties tend to belong to well-demarcated things, typically loci of causal chains [Lewis] |
| 8589 | For us, a property being natural is just an aspect of its featuring in the contents of our attitudes [Lewis] |
| 15460 | All perfectly natural properties are intrinsic [Lewis, by Lewis] |
| 15726 | Natural properties fix resemblance and powers, and are picked out by universals [Lewis] |
| 7031 | Lewis says properties are sets of actual and possible objects [Lewis, by Heil] |
| 8572 | Any class of things is a property, no matter how whimsical or irrelevant [Lewis] |
| 18433 | There are far more properties than any brain could ever encodify [Lewis] |
| 8604 | We need properties as semantic values for linguistic expressions [Lewis] |
| 14499 | Properties are classes of possible and actual concrete particulars [Lewis, by Koslicki] |
| 7965 | Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7934 | Tropes are abstract (two can occupy the same place), but not universals (they have locations) [Macdonald,C] |
| 7958 | Properties are sets of exactly resembling property-particulars [Macdonald,C] |
| 7972 | Tropes are abstract particulars, not concrete particulars, so the theory is not nominalist [Macdonald,C] |
| 7959 | How do a group of resembling tropes all resemble one another in the same way? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7960 | Trope Nominalism is the only nominalism to introduce new entities, inviting Ockham's Razor [Macdonald,C] |
| 15120 | Lewisian properties have powers because of their relationships to other properties [Lewis, by Hawthorne] |
| 8573 | Most properties are causally irrelevant, and we can't spot the relevant ones. [Lewis] |
| 8569 | I suspend judgements about universals, but their work must be done [Lewis] |
| 21961 | Physics aims to discover which universals actually exist [Lewis, by Moore,AW] |
| 7951 | Numerical sameness is explained by theories of identity, but what explains qualitative identity? [Macdonald,C] |
| 7964 | How can universals connect instances, if they are nothing like them? [Macdonald,C] |
| 8576 | The One over Many problem (in predication terms) deserves to be neglected (by ostriches) [Lewis] |
| 7971 | Real Nominalism is only committed to concrete particulars, word-tokens, and (possibly) sets [Macdonald,C] |
| 7955 | Resemblance Nominalism cannot explain either new resemblances, or absence of resemblances [Macdonald,C] |
| 8570 | To have a property is to be a member of a class, usually a class of things [Lewis] |
| 8574 | Class Nominalism and Resemblance Nominalism are pretty much the same [Lewis] |
| 7961 | A 'thing' cannot be in two places at once, and two things cannot be in the same place at once [Macdonald,C] |
| 7926 | We 'individuate' kinds of object, and 'identify' particular specimens [Macdonald,C] |
| 7936 | Unlike bundles of properties, substances have an intrinsic unity [Macdonald,C] |
| 7930 | The bundle theory of substance implies the identity of indiscernibles [Macdonald,C] |
| 7932 | A phenomenalist cannot distinguish substance from attribute, so must accept the bundle view [Macdonald,C] |
| 7937 | When we ascribe a property to a substance, the bundle theory will make that a tautology [Macdonald,C] |
| 7939 | Substances persist through change, but the bundle theory says they can't [Macdonald,C] |
| 7940 | A substance might be a sequence of bundles, rather than a single bundle [Macdonald,C] |
| 7948 | A statue and its matter have different persistence conditions, so they are not identical [Macdonald,C] |
| 7929 | A substance is either a bundle of properties, or a bare substratum, or an essence [Macdonald,C] |
| 7941 | Each substance contains a non-property, which is its substratum or bare particular [Macdonald,C] |
| 7942 | The substratum theory explains the unity of substances, and their survival through change [Macdonald,C] |
| 7943 | A substratum has the quality of being bare, and they are useless because indiscernible [Macdonald,C] |
| 7927 | At different times Leibniz articulated three different versions of his so-called Law [Macdonald,C] |
| 7928 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is false, because it is not necessarily true [Macdonald,C] |
| 7947 | In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself [Macdonald,C] |
| 8579 | Psychophysical identity implies the possibility of idealism or panpsychism [Lewis] |
| 8615 | We need natural properties in order to motivate the principle of charity [Lewis] |
| 8614 | A sophisticated principle of charity sometimes imputes error as well as truth [Lewis] |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| 8608 | Counterfactuals 'backtrack' if a different present implies a different past [Lewis] |
| 8584 | Causal counterfactuals must avoid backtracking, to avoid epiphenomena and preemption [Lewis] |
| 15727 | Physics aims for a list of natural properties [Lewis] |
| 8581 | Physics discovers laws and causal explanations, and also the natural properties required [Lewis] |
| 8611 | A law of nature is any regularity that earns inclusion in the ideal system [Lewis] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |