261 ideas
9199 | Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus] |
20853 | Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
2474 | It seems likely that analysis of concepts is impossible, but justification can survive without it [Fodor] |
2481 | Despite all the efforts of philosophers, nothing can ever be reduced to anything [Fodor] |
2505 | Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor] |
2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
2470 | Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor] |
2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
21388 | The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20793 | How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus] |
8077 | Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
20791 | Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
9456 | Modal logic is multiple systems, shown in the variety of accessibility relations between worlds [Jacquette] |
7689 | The modal logic of C.I.Lewis was only interpreted by Kripke and Hintikka in the 1960s [Jacquette] |
9457 | The two main views in philosophy of logic are extensionalism and intensionalism [Jacquette] |
7681 | Logic describes inferences between sentences expressing possible properties of objects [Jacquette] |
2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
9463 | Classical logic is bivalent, has excluded middle, and only quantifies over existent objects [Jacquette] |
8078 | Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
7682 | Logic is not just about signs, because it relates to states of affairs, objects, properties and truth-values [Jacquette] |
6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
7697 | On Russell's analysis, the sentence "The winged horse has wings" comes out as false [Jacquette] |
9466 | Nominalists like substitutional quantification to avoid the metaphysics of objects [Jacquette] |
9465 | Substitutional universal quantification retains truth for substitution of terms of the same type [Jacquette] |
9458 | Extensionalists say that quantifiers presuppose the existence of their objects [Jacquette] |
9461 | Intensionalists say meaning is determined by the possession of properties [Jacquette] |
12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
7701 | Can a Barber shave all and only those persons who do not shave themselves? [Jacquette] |
12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
7707 | To grasp being, we must say why something exists, and why there is one world [Jacquette] |
7692 | Being is maximal consistency [Jacquette] |
7687 | Existence is completeness and consistency [Jacquette] |
5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
7679 | Ontology is the same as the conceptual foundations of logic [Jacquette] |
21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
7678 | Ontology must include the minimum requirements for our semantics [Jacquette] |
16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
7683 | Logic is based either on separate objects and properties, or objects as combinations of properties [Jacquette] |
7684 | Reduce states-of-affairs to object-property combinations, and possible worlds to states-of-affairs [Jacquette] |
2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
7703 | If classes can't be eliminated, and they are property combinations, then properties (universals) can't be either [Jacquette] |
12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
2475 | Don't define something by a good instance of it; a good example is a special case of the ordinary example [Fodor] |
7685 | An object is a predication subject, distinguished by a distinctive combination of properties [Jacquette] |
7699 | Numbers, sets and propositions are abstract particulars; properties, qualities and relations are universals [Jacquette] |
16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
16059 | Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley] |
12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
7691 | The actual world is a consistent combination of states, made of consistent property combinations [Jacquette] |
7688 | The actual world is a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs [Jacquette] |
7695 | Do proposition-structures not associated with the actual world deserve to be called worlds? [Jacquette] |
7694 | We must experience the 'actual' world, which is defined by maximally consistent propositions [Jacquette] |
12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
2502 | How do you count beliefs? [Fodor] |
12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
2501 | Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor] |
3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
2465 | Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor] |
2504 | Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor] |
2493 | According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor] |
3978 | Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor] |
12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
2494 | Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor] |
2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
2503 | Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor] |
2508 | The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor] |
12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
15473 | How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB] |
2485 | Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor] |
2981 | Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor] |
7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
3976 | Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor] |
3980 | Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor] |
7706 | If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentional states are explanatorily fundamental [Jacquette] |
12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
2506 | If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor] |
20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
2599 | Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor] |
3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
2467 | Functionalists see pains as properties involving relations and causation [Fodor] |
2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
2489 | Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor] |
2985 | Are beliefs brains states, but picked out at a "higher level"? [Lyons on Fodor] |
2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
2468 | Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor] |
7704 | Reduction of intentionality involving nonexistent objects is impossible, as reduction must be to what is actual [Jacquette] |
2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
2490 | Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [Fodor] |
12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
2598 | Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor] |
3981 | Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor] |
2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
2476 | The goal of thought is to understand the world, not instantly sort it into conceptual categories [Fodor] |
12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
3975 | Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor] |
2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
2498 | Modules make the world manageable [Fodor] |
2499 | Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor] |
2496 | Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor] |
2509 | Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor] |
2500 | Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor] |
2507 | Rationality rises above modules [Fodor] |
22186 | Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha] |
2491 | Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor] |
2497 | Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor] |
2495 | Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor] |
3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
2483 | Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor] |
2604 | We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor] |
12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
2480 | Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor] |
2487 | Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor] |
12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
3135 | Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey] |
12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
2983 | Maybe narrow content is physical, broad content less so [Lyons on Fodor] |
12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
3982 | How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor] |
2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
2486 | Content can't be causal role, because causal role is decided by content [Fodor] |
3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
2492 | Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor] |
12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
2471 | Are concepts best seen as capacities? [Fodor] |
2472 | For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something [Fodor] |
12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
2477 | If to understand "fish" you must know facts about them, where does that end? [Fodor] |
3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
9460 | Extensionalist semantics forbids reference to nonexistent objects [Jacquette] |
9459 | Extensionalist semantics is circular, as we must know the extension before assessing 'Fa' [Jacquette] |
20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
7702 | The extreme views on propositions are Frege's Platonism and Quine's extreme nominalism [Jacquette] |
2473 | Analysis is impossible without the analytic/synthetic distinction [Fodor] |
2484 | The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work [Fodor] |
20850 | Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
20869 | The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus] |
3044 | Stoics say that beauty and goodness are equivalent and linked [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20838 | Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus] |
20813 | Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus] |
3045 | Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
20864 | Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus] |
5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20856 | Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
1779 | We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20857 | Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
21403 | The later Stoics identified the logos with an air-fire compound, called 'pneuma' [Chrysippus, by Long] |
20828 | Fire is a separate element, not formed with others (as was previously believed) [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
5975 | Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
3977 | Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor] |
20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
3048 | Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
3042 | Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5965 | The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus] |
1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |