100 ideas
22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
15038 | Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault] |
7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
22642 | Man has an intense natural interest in the consistency of his own thinking [James] |
22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
6710 | You can only define a statement that something is 'true' by referring to its functional possibilities [James] |
15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |
18986 | Truth is just a name for verification-processes [James] |
15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
18983 | In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object [James] |
18972 | Ideas are true in so far as they co-ordinate our experiences [James] |
18973 | New opinions count as 'true' if they are assimilated to an individual's current beliefs [James] |
18984 | True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify (and false otherwise) [James] |
22305 | If the hypothesis of God is widely successful, it is true [James] |
458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
22641 | Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James] |
22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
18987 | A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes [James] |
13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
18981 | 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James] |
457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
15037 | Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault] |
18974 | Truth is a species of good, being whatever proves itself good in the way of belief [James] |
18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
22640 | We find satisfaction in consistency of all of our beliefs, perceptions and mental connections [James] |
21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
18971 | Theories are practical tools for progress, not answers to enigmas [James] |
18985 | True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James] |
18982 | Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James] |
22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
9286 | Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James] |
7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
9285 | 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James] |
1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
23981 | Rage is inconceivable without bodily responses; so there are no disembodied emotions [James] |
22235 | Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault] |
22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
18975 | We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James] |
21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
6570 | Imagine millions made happy on condition that one person suffers endless lonely torture [James] |
21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
15040 | Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault] |
15041 | Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault] |
8991 | Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton] |
7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
22236 | The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault] |
21947 | Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting] |
21946 | Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
15039 | History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault] |
589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
18980 | If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything [James] |
1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
18978 | It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James] |
18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
18977 | The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James] |
18979 | Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James] |
18976 | Private experience is the main evidence for God [James] |
1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |
22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |
18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |