55 ideas
9271 | Human knowledge may not produce well-being; the examined life may not be worth living [Gray] |
16661 | There are two sorts of category - referring to things, and to circumstances of things [Boethius] |
15035 | If universals are not separate, we can isolate them by abstraction [Boethius, by Panaccio] |
14665 | We can call the quality of Plato 'Platonity', and say it is a quality which only he possesses [Boethius] |
23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
9275 | Knowledge does not need minds or nervous systems; it is found in all living things [Gray] |
5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
23125 | Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik] |
23126 | Conservatives often want peace, prosperity and tolerance, but not social fairness [Gopnik] |
23132 | Conservatives believe obedience and rank are essential to social order [Gopnik] |
23128 | The opposite of liberalism is dogmatism [Gopnik] |
23142 | People are fallible, so liberalism tries to distribute power [Gopnik] |
23143 | Liberals have tried very hard to build a conscience into their institutions [Gopnik] |
23141 | Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups [Gopnik] |
23124 | Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik] |
23127 | Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik] |
23138 | Modern left-wingers criticise liberalism's control of culture [Gopnik] |
23129 | Right-wingers attack liberal faith in reason, left-wingers attack its faith in reform [Gopnik] |
23133 | Cosmopolitan liberals lack national loyalty, and welcome excessive immigration [Gopnik] |
23139 | Liberalism's attempt to be neutral and colour-blind erases cultural identities [Gopnik] |
23135 | Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik] |
23140 | Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik] |
23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
23136 | Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik] |
23134 | A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik] |
9278 | Nowadays we identify the free life with the good life [Gray] |
9280 | Over forty percent of the Earth's living tissue is human [Gray] |
16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
23061 | Free atheism should start by questioning its faith in humanity [Gray] |
23057 | Gnosticism has a supreme creator God, giving way to a possibly hostile Demiurge [Gray] |
23056 | Judaism only became monotheistic around 550 BCE [Gray] |
9272 | Without Christianity we lose the idea that human history has a meaning [Gray] |
9279 | What was our original sin, and how could Christ's suffering redeem it? [Gray] |
23055 | Christians introduced the idea that a religion needs a creed [Gray] |
23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |