154 ideas
23350 | A wise philosophers uses reason to cautiously judge each aspect of living [Epictetus] |
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] |
23355 | The task of philosophy is to establish standards, as occurs with weights and measures [Epictetus] |
21394 | Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together, and what follows from them [Epictetus] |
23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
20876 | Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them [Epictetus] |
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] |
23344 | Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions [Epictetus] |
23343 | Because reason performs all analysis, we should analyse reason - but how? [Epictetus] |
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] |
4098 | The theory of descriptions supports internalism, since they are thinkable when the object is non-existent [Crane] |
19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
4077 | Aesthetic properties of thing supervene on their physical properties [Crane] |
4078 | Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane] |
23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
8386 | Events are picked out by descriptions, and facts by whole sentences [Crane] |
4082 | The distinction between 'resultant' properties (weight) and 'emergent' properties is a bit vague [Crane] |
4083 | If mental properties are emergent they add a new type of causation, and physics is not complete [Crane] |
4079 | Properties are causes [Crane] |
4068 | Traditional substance is separate from properties and capable of independent existence [Crane] |
4096 | Maybe beliefs don't need to be conscious, if you are not conscious of the beliefs guiding your actions [Crane] |
4097 | Maybe there are two kinds of belief - 'de re' beliefs and 'de dicto' beliefs [Crane] |
23359 | We can't believe apparent falsehoods, or deny apparent truths [Epictetus] |
4093 | Many cases of knowing how can be expressed in propositional terms (like how to get somewhere) [Crane] |
23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
23356 | Self-evidence is most obvious when people who deny a proposition still have to use it [Epictetus] |
4108 | Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless, so which is it? [Crane] |
4104 | One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine [Crane] |
4105 | The traditional supports for the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes [Crane] |
4101 | If we smell something we are aware of the smell separately, but we don't perceive a 'look' when we see [Crane] |
4102 | The problems of perception disappear if it is a relation to an intentional state, not to an object or sense datum [Crane] |
4109 | If perception is much richer than our powers of description, this suggests that it is non-conceptual [Crane] |
4103 | The adverbial theory of perceptions says it is the experiences which have properties, not the objects [Crane] |
4065 | Is knowledge just a state of mind, or does it also involve the existence of external things? [Crane] |
19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
4092 | The core of the consciousness problem is the case of Mary, zombies, and the Hard Question [Crane] |
4087 | Intentionalism does not require that all mental states be propositional attitudes [Crane] |
4095 | Object-directed attitudes like love are just as significant as propositional attitudes [Crane] |
4106 | If someone removes their glasses the content of experience remains, but the quality changes [Crane] |
4089 | Pains have a region of the body as their intentional content, not some pain object [Crane] |
4090 | Weak intentionalism says qualia are extra properties; strong intentionalism says they are intentional [Crane] |
4107 | With inverted qualia a person's experiences would change, but their beliefs remain the same [Crane] |
23330 | Freedom is making all things happen by choice, without constraint [Epictetus] |
23342 | Freedom is acting by choice, with no constraint possible [Epictetus] |
23329 | We make progress when we improve and naturalise our choices, asserting their freedom [Epictetus] |
23332 | Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus] |
23331 | Not even Zeus can control what I choose [Epictetus] |
23338 | You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus can control my power of choice [Epictetus] |
23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
20875 | If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus] |
23347 | If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill [Epictetus] |
4069 | Descartes did not think of minds as made of a substance, because they are not divisible [Crane] |
4074 | Functionalism defines mental states by their causal properties, which rules out epiphenomenalism [Crane] |
4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
4070 | Properties dualism says mental properties are distinct from physical, despite a single underlying substance [Crane] |
4084 | Non-reductive physicalism seeks an explanation of supervenience, but emergentists accept it as basic [Crane] |
4080 | If mental supervenes on the physical, then every physical cause will be accompanied by a mental one [Crane] |
4075 | Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane] |
4085 | Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane] |
4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
4072 | The completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind [Crane] |
4094 | Experience teaches us propositions, because we can reason about our phenomenal experience [Crane] |
4100 | The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false. [Crane] |
4067 | Broad content entails the existence of the object of the thought [Crane] |
4063 | In intensional contexts, truth depends on how extensions are conceived. [Crane] |
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] |
23325 | Epictetus developed a notion of will as the source of our responsibility [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
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] |
23364 | Homer wrote to show that the most blessed men can be ruined by poor judgement [Epictetus] |
20873 | Tragedies are versified sufferings of people impressed by externals [Epictetus] |
19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
23340 | We consist of animal bodies and god-like reason [Epictetus] |
23366 | We see nature's will in the ways all people are the same [Epictetus] |
23358 | Every species produces exceptional beings, and we must just accept their nature [Epictetus] |
19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
23339 | I will die as becomes a person returning what he does not own [Epictetus] |
23345 | Don't be frightened of pain or death; only be frightened of fearing them [Epictetus] |
23357 | Knowledge of what is good leads to love; only the wise, who distinguish good from evil, can love [Epictetus] |
19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
23363 | The evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature [Epictetus] |
23328 | The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus] |
23362 | All human ills result from failure to apply preconceptions to particular cases [Epictetus] |
23353 | We have a natural sense of honour [Epictetus] |
23354 | If someone harms themselves in harming me, then I harm myself by returning the harm [Epictetus] |
23324 | In the Discourses choice [prohairesis] defines our character and behaviour [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
4022 | Epictetus says we should console others for misfortune, but not be moved by pity [Epictetus, by Taylor,C] |
23365 | If someone is weeping, you should sympathise and help, but not share his suffering [Epictetus] |
23361 | Health is only a good when it is used well [Epictetus] |
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] |
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] |
23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
23346 | A person is as naturally a part of a city as a foot is part of the body [Epictetus] |
23351 | We are citizens of the universe, and principal parts of it [Epictetus] |
19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
23352 | A citizen should only consider what is good for the whole society [Epictetus] |
20874 | A citizen is committed to ignore private advantage, and seek communal good [Epictetus] |
19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
22604 | Punishing a criminal for moral ignorance is the same as punishing someone for being blind [Epictetus] |
23368 | Perhaps we should persuade culprits that their punishment is just? [Epictetus] |
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] |
23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
4071 | Causation can be seen in counterfactual terms, or as increased probability, or as energy flow [Crane] |
8387 | A cause has its effects in virtue of its properties [Crane] |
4076 | Causes are properties, not events, because properties are what make a difference in a situation [Crane] |
8384 | The regularity theory explains a causal event by other items than the two that are involved [Crane] |
23341 | God created humans as spectators and interpreters of God's works [Epictetus] |
23348 | Both god and the good bring benefits, so their true nature seems to be the same [Epictetus] |
4066 | It seems that 'exists' could sometimes be a predicate [Crane] |
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] |
23360 | Each of the four elements in you is entirely scattered after death [Epictetus] |
23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |