32 ideas
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
8361 | What is true used to be possible, but it may no longer be so [Wright,GHv] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
8363 | p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv] |
8364 | We can imagine controlling floods by controlling rain, but not vice versa [Wright,GHv] |
8366 | The very notion of a cause depends on agency and action [Wright,GHv] |
8362 | We give regularities a causal character by subjecting them to experiment [Wright,GHv] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
8360 | We must further analyse conditions for causation, into quantifiers or modal concepts [Wright,GHv] |
8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |