140 ideas
| 23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
| 19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
| 19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
| 19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
| 19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
| 19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
| 19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
| 9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
| 19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
| 19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
| 19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
| 19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| 23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
| 9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
| 1813 | All reasoning endlessly leads to further reasoning (Mode 12) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1815 | Reasoning needs arbitrary faith in preliminary hypotheses (Mode 14) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1812 | All discussion is full of uncertainty and contradiction (Mode 11) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1811 | Proofs often presuppose the thing to be proved (Mode 15) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
| 19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
| 19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| 14334 | Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford] |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| 14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
| 14333 | Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford] |
| 14315 | Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford] |
| 14332 | There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford] |
| 14336 | Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford] |
| 14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
| 14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
| 9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
| 14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
| 14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
| 14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford] |
| 14313 | All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford] |
| 14318 | Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford] |
| 14293 | Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford] |
| 14298 | Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford] |
| 14326 | Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford] |
| 14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
| 14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
| 14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
| 14291 | Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford] |
| 14299 | There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford] |
| 14323 | If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford] |
| 14328 | Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford] |
| 14331 | Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford] |
| 9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
| 9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
| 18617 | Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford] |
| 14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
| 12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
| 18618 | Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford] |
| 18619 | Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford] |
| 18620 | Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford] |
| 14309 | Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford] |
| 14311 | Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford] |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| 8850 | Agrippa's Trilemma: justification is infinite, or ends arbitrarily, or is circular [Agrippa, by Williams,M] |
| 1814 | Everything is perceived in relation to another thing (Mode 13) [Agrippa, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 14319 | Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford] |
| 14342 | General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford] |
| 14322 | If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford] |
| 14320 | Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford] |
| 14337 | Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford] |
| 14343 | To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford] |
| 14324 | Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| 19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
| 23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
| 19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
| 19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
| 19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
| 19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
| 19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
| 19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
| 19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
| 23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
| 19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| 23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
| 19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
| 19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
| 19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
| 19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
| 19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
| 19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
| 23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
| 19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
| 19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
| 19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
| 19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
| 14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
| 19068 | Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford] |
| 9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
| 9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
| 9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
| 14338 | In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford] |
| 9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
| 14339 | Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford] |
| 14340 | It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford] |
| 14341 | Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford] |
| 9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
| 9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
| 9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
| 9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
| 9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
| 9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
| 9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
| 9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
| 14345 | The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford] |
| 9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
| 14307 | Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford] |
| 9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
| 9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
| 9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
| 9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
| 19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
| 19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |