51 ideas
| 14001 | People who use science to make philosophical points don't realise how philosophical science is [Markosian] |
| 13991 | Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian] |
| 14002 | Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian] |
| 20043 | Evolutionary explanations look to the past or the group, not to the individual [Stout,R] |
| 20058 | Not all explanation is causal. We don't explain a painting's beauty, or the irrationality of root-2, that way [Stout,R] |
| 14000 | 'Grabby' truth conditions first select their object, unlike 'searchy' truth conditions [Markosian] |
| 1554 | Contradiction is impossible, since only one side of the argument refers to the true facts [Prodicus, by Didymus the Blind] |
| 20035 | Philosophy of action studies the nature of agency, and of deliberate actions [Stout,R] |
| 20084 | Agency is causal processes that are sensitive to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20061 | Mental states and actions need to be separate, if one is to cause the other [Stout,R] |
| 20079 | Are actions bodily movements, or a sequence of intention-movement-result? [Stout,R] |
| 20080 | If one action leads to another, does it cause it, or is it part of it? [Stout,R] |
| 20059 | I do actions, but not events, so actions are not events [Stout,R] |
| 20081 | Bicycle riding is not just bodily movement - you also have to be on the bicycle [Stout,R] |
| 20044 | The rationalistic approach says actions are intentional when subject to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20039 | The causal theory says that actions are intentional when intention (or belief-desire) causes the act [Stout,R] |
| 20047 | Deciding what to do usually involves consulting the world, not our own minds [Stout,R] |
| 20065 | Should we study intentions in their own right, or only as part of intentional action? [Stout,R] |
| 20067 | You can have incompatible desires, but your intentions really ought to be consistent [Stout,R] |
| 20078 | The normativity of intentions would be obvious if they were internal promises [Stout,R] |
| 20036 | Intentional agency is seen in internal precursors of action, and in external reasons for the act [Stout,R] |
| 20066 | Speech needs sustained intentions, but not prior intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20073 | Bratman has to treat shared intentions as interrelated individual intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20069 | A request to pass the salt shares an intention that the request be passed on [Stout,R] |
| 20070 | An individual cannot express the intention that a group do something like moving a piano [Stout,R] |
| 20071 | An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group [Stout,R] |
| 20038 | If the action of walking is just an act of will, then movement of the legs seems irrelevant [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20077 | If you can judge one act as best, then do another, this supports an inward-looking view of agency [Stout,R] |
| 20049 | Maybe your emotions arise from you motivations, rather than being their cause [Stout,R] |
| 20046 | For an ascetic a powerful desire for something is a reason not to implement it [Stout,R] |
| 20060 | Beliefs, desires and intentions are not events, so can't figure in causal relations [Stout,R] |
| 20055 | A standard view says that the explanation of an action is showing its rational justification [Stout,R] |
| 20056 | In order to be causal, an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states [Stout,R] |
| 20053 | An action is only yours if you produce it, rather than some state or event within you [Stout,R] |
| 20048 | There may be a justification relative to a person's view, and yet no absolute justification [Stout,R] |
| 20068 | Describing a death as a side-effect rather than a goal may just be good public relations [Stout,R] |
| 20083 | Aristotelian causation involves potentiality inputs into processes (rather than a pair of events) [Stout,R] |
| 13990 | Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian] |
| 13992 | Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian] |
| 13994 | Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian] |
| 13995 | Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian] |
| 13996 | Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian] |
| 13997 | Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian] |
| 13993 | Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian] |
| 13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
| 13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
| 1555 | People used to think anything helpful to life was a god, as the Egyptians think the Nile a god [Prodicus] |
| 535 | The gods are just personified human benefits [Prodicus] |
| 1543 | He denied the existence of the gods, saying they are just exaltations of things useful for life [Prodicus] |