43 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
10676 | The Axiom of Choice is a non-logical principle of set-theory [Hossack] |
10686 | The Axiom of Choice guarantees a one-one correspondence from sets to ordinals [Hossack] |
10687 | Maybe we reduce sets to ordinals, rather than the other way round [Hossack] |
10677 | Extensional mereology needs two definitions and two axioms [Hossack] |
10671 | Plural definite descriptions pick out the largest class of things that fit the description [Hossack] |
10666 | Plural reference will refer to complex facts without postulating complex things [Hossack] |
10669 | Plural reference is just an abbreviation when properties are distributive, but not otherwise [Hossack] |
10675 | A plural comprehension principle says there are some things one of which meets some condition [Hossack] |
10673 | Plural language can discuss without inconsistency things that are not members of themselves [Hossack] |
10680 | The theory of the transfinite needs the ordinal numbers [Hossack] |
10684 | I take the real numbers to be just lengths [Hossack] |
10674 | A plural language gives a single comprehensive induction axiom for arithmetic [Hossack] |
10681 | In arithmetic singularists need sets as the instantiator of numeric properties [Hossack] |
10685 | Set theory is the science of infinity [Hossack] |
15007 | If you make 'grounding' fundamental, you have to mention some non-fundamental notions [Sider on Fine,K] |
15006 | Something is grounded when it holds, and is explained, and necessitated by something else [Fine,K, by Sider] |
15055 | Grounding relations are best expressed as relations between sentences [Fine,K] |
15050 | Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form [Fine,K] |
15051 | Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction [Fine,K] |
15052 | Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence [Fine,K] |
15056 | The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced [Fine,K] |
15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
10668 | We are committed to a 'group' of children, if they are sitting in a circle [Hossack] |
10664 | Complex particulars are either masses, or composites, or sets [Hossack] |
10678 | The relation of composition is indispensable to the part-whole relation for individuals [Hossack] |
10682 | The fusion of five rectangles can decompose into more than five parts that are rectangles [Hossack] |
10665 | Leibniz's Law argues against atomism - water is wet, unlike water molecules [Hossack] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
15061 | Although colour depends on us, we can describe the world that way if it picks out fundamentals [Fine,K] |
15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
15057 | Ultimate explanations are in 'grounds', which account for other truths, which hold in virtue of the grounding [Fine,K] |
10663 | A thought can refer to many things, but only predicate a universal and affirm a state of affairs [Hossack] |
15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
10683 | We could ignore space, and just talk of the shape of matter [Hossack] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |