Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Against Structural Universals' and 'Freedom and Reason'

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22 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 4. Intrinsic Properties
If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 1. Structure of an Object
The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis]
If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis]
The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis]
The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis]
Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis]
Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis]
We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 5. Composition of an Object
Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis]
Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative
The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]