Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'works' and 'Properties'

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24 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
1597 Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics
5437 The claim of hermeneutics to give knowledge through understanding is challenged by positivism [Mautner on Dilthey]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
4036 What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
15754 Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
4034 Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong]
8535 To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
8537 Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
8538 Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
8539 Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta
8529 Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
8532 Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
8530 Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong]
8536 We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
8531 In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
15753 Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
3013 Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / d. Explaining people
5436 Natural science seeks explanation; human sciences seek understanding [Dilthey, by Mautner]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
8533 Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong]
4035 There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
1494 Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
8540 The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong]
8541 Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
1713 Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
1742 Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]