220 ideas
| 22115 | Wise people should contemplate and discuss the truth, and fight against falsehood [Aquinas] |
| 22101 | Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are [Aquinas] |
| 2319 | Metaphysics is the clarification of the ontological relationships between different areas of thought [Kim] |
| 1848 | We are coerced into assent to a truth by reason's violence [Aquinas] |
| 1858 | The mind is compelled by necessary truths, but not by contingent truths [Aquinas] |
| 21267 | Supposing many principles is superfluous if a few will do it [Aquinas] |
| 3426 | If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world [Kim] |
| 22102 | Arguing with opponents uncovers truths, and restrains falsehoods [Aquinas] |
| 13070 | If definitions must be general, and general terms can't individuate, then Socrates can't be defined [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 11197 | The definitions expressing identity are used to sort things [Aquinas] |
| 23176 | Truth is universal, but knowledge of it is not [Aquinas] |
| 20621 | Types of lying: Speak lies, intend lies, intend deception, aim at deceptive goal? [Aquinas, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
| 1852 | For the mind Good is one truth among many, and Truth is one good among many [Aquinas] |
| 21248 | If the existence of truth is denied, the 'Truth does not exist' must be true! [Aquinas] |
| 22104 | Truth is the conformity of being to intellect [Aquinas] |
| 23173 | If a syllogism admits one absurdity, others must follow [Aquinas] |
| 6007 | If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6006 | If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6008 | Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 11195 | If affirmative propositions express being, we affirm about what is absent [Aquinas] |
| 22103 | Being is basic to thought, and all other concepts are additions to being [Aquinas] |
| 15812 | Being implies distinctness, which implies division, unity, and multitude [Aquinas] |
| 4779 | For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Kim, by Psillos] |
| 10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
| 8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
| 8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
| 8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
| 8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
| 8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
| 2317 | Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency [Kim, by PG] |
| 3536 | Supervenient properties must have matching base properties [Kim] |
| 2310 | Supervenience is linked to dependence [Kim] |
| 2315 | Mereological supervenience says wholes are fixed by parts [Kim] |
| 13745 | Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence [Kim] |
| 13746 | Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation [Kim] |
| 3431 | Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim] |
| 2329 | Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal [Kim] |
| 21268 | Non-human things are explicable naturally, and voluntary things by the will, so God is not needed [Aquinas] |
| 3437 | 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan [Kim] |
| 16655 | Different genera are delimited by modes of predication, which rest on modes of being [Aquinas] |
| 15456 | Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Kim, by Lewis] |
| 3430 | Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property [Kim] |
| 3432 | Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property? [Kim] |
| 2320 | Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents [Kim] |
| 3434 | Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things [Kim] |
| 16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |
| 11201 | Properties have an incomplete essence, with definitions referring to their subject [Aquinas] |
| 3436 | Should properties be individuated by their causal powers? [Kim] |
| 11205 | If the form of 'human' contains 'many', Socrates isn't human; if it contains 'one', Socrates is Plato [Aquinas] |
| 13090 | The principle of diversity for corporeal substances is their matter [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 17555 | 'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas] |
| 16765 | Humans only have a single substantial form, which contains the others and acts for them [Aquinas] |
| 16766 | One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas] |
| 11202 | It is by having essence that things exist [Aquinas] |
| 11203 | Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas] |
| 11200 | The definition of a physical object must include the material as well as the form [Aquinas] |
| 11196 | Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas] |
| 11208 | A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas] |
| 3406 | Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [Kim, by PG] |
| 22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
| 23175 | The conclusions of speculative reason about necessities are certain [Aquinas] |
| 21337 | A knowing being possesses a further reality, the 'presence' of the thing known [Aquinas] |
| 21249 | Some things are self-evident to us; others are only self-evident in themselves [Aquinas] |
| 22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
| 21250 | A proposition is self-evident if the predicate is included in the essence of the subject [Aquinas] |
| 22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
| 20224 | Sensation prepares the way for intellectual knowledge, which needs the virtues of reason [Aquinas] |
| 1860 | Knowledge may be based on senses, but we needn't sense all our knowledge [Aquinas] |
| 8825 | It seems impossible to logically deduce physical knowledge from indubitable sense data [Kim] |
| 22109 | The fullest knowledge places a conclusion within an accurate theory [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| 530 | There are two contradictory arguments about everything [Kim] |
| 13314 | Protagoras says arguments on both sides are always equal [Kim, by Seneca] |
| 2065 | Not every person is the measure of all things, but only wise people [Plato on Kim] |
| 1550 | Why didn't Protagoras begin by saying "a tadpole is the measure of all things"? [Plato on Kim] |
| 14470 | Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event [Kim] |
| 11198 | Definition of essence makes things understandable [Aquinas] |
| 3368 | Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim] |
| 3392 | Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim] |
| 3396 | Experiment requires mental causation [Kim] |
| 2318 | Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [Kim, by PG] |
| 3397 | Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim] |
| 3367 | Both thought and language have intentionality [Kim] |
| 3365 | Intentionality involves both reference and content [Kim] |
| 2325 | It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality [Kim] |
| 3360 | Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate? [Kim] |
| 3366 | Pain has no reference or content [Kim] |
| 3389 | Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional [Kim] |
| 3391 | Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [Kim, by PG] |
| 22107 | Sensations are transmitted to 'internal senses' in the brain, chiefly to 'phantasia' and 'imagination' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| 9098 | Mental activity combines what we sense with imagination of what is not present [Aquinas] |
| 9092 | Abstracting A from B generates truth, as long as the connection is not denied [Aquinas] |
| 9093 | We understand the general nature of things by ignoring individual peculiarities [Aquinas] |
| 9097 | The mind abstracts generalities from images, but also uses images for understanding [Aquinas] |
| 9095 | Very general ideas (being, oneness, potentiality) can be abstracted from thought matter in general [Aquinas] |
| 9099 | Particular instances come first, and (pace Plato) generalisations are abstracted from them [Aquinas] |
| 10508 | Species are abstracted from appearances by ignoring individual conditions [Aquinas] |
| 3422 | Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence [Kim] |
| 3412 | How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment? [Kim] |
| 3363 | We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing [Kim] |
| 22111 | Aquinas attributes freedom to decisions and judgements, and not to the will alone [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| 1855 | If we saw something as totally and utterly good, we would be compelled to will it [Aquinas] |
| 1856 | Nothing can be willed except what is good, but good is very varied, and so choices are unpredictable [Aquinas] |
| 1862 | However habituated you are, given time to ponder you can go against a habit [Aquinas] |
| 1849 | Since will is a reasoning power, it can entertain opposites, so it is not compelled to embrace one of them [Aquinas] |
| 1861 | The will is not compelled to move, even if pleasant things are set before it [Aquinas] |
| 1853 | Because the will moves by examining alternatives, it doesn't compel itself to will [Aquinas] |
| 1854 | We must admit that when the will is not willing something, the first movement to will must come from outside the will [Aquinas] |
| 22105 | The human intellectual soul is an incorporeal, subsistent principle [Aquinas] |
| 3409 | Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete [Kim] |
| 20700 | Without God's influence every operation would stop, so God causes everything [Aquinas] |
| 3399 | If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness [Kim] |
| 3390 | Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas? [Kim] |
| 3414 | What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible? [Kim] |
| 3359 | Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation [Kim] |
| 3369 | Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim] |
| 3428 | Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim] |
| 3380 | Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation? [Kim] |
| 3371 | Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together [Kim] |
| 3372 | Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states [Kim] |
| 3373 | Snakes have different pain behaviour from us [Kim] |
| 3370 | What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs? [Kim] |
| 3379 | Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable [Kim] |
| 2324 | Intentionality as function seems possible [Kim] |
| 3388 | Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't [Kim] |
| 3384 | The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese [Kim] |
| 3393 | How do functional states give rise to mental causation? [Kim] |
| 3427 | Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim] |
| 2314 | Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't [Kim] |
| 3439 | Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim] |
| 3376 | We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties [Kim] |
| 3424 | Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists [Kim] |
| 2313 | Emergentism says there is no explanation for a supervenient property [Kim] |
| 2328 | The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia [Kim] |
| 2309 | Non-Reductive Physicalism relies on supervenience [Kim] |
| 3362 | Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible [Kim] |
| 3413 | Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience [Kim] |
| 2311 | Maybe strong supervenience implies reduction [Kim] |
| 3374 | Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim] |
| 3433 | The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain [Kim] |
| 3377 | Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation [Kim] |
| 3438 | Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim] |
| 3440 | Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim] |
| 2308 | Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies [Kim] |
| 2322 | Multiple realisation applies to other species, and even one individual over time [Kim] |
| 2327 | Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful [Kim] |
| 3375 | If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange? [Kim] |
| 3411 | How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another? [Kim] |
| 2323 | Emotions have both intentionality and qualia [Kim] |
| 3386 | Folk psychology has been remarkably durable [Kim] |
| 3394 | Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory [Kim] |
| 3387 | A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling [Kim] |
| 3410 | Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism [Kim] |
| 22108 | First grasp what it is, then its essential features; judgement is their compounding and division [Aquinas] |
| 3382 | A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test [Kim] |
| 3383 | The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements [Kim] |
| 3408 | Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds [Kim] |
| 3420 | Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour [Kim] |
| 3416 | Content may match several things in the environment [Kim] |
| 3418 | 'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful [Kim] |
| 3421 | Content is best thought of as truth conditions [Kim] |
| 3419 | Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external [Kim] |
| 3417 | Content depends on other content as well as the facts [Kim] |
| 10503 | We abstract forms from appearances, and acquire knowledge of immaterial things [Aquinas] |
| 10509 | Understanding consists entirely of grasping abstracted species [Aquinas] |
| 10506 | Mathematics can be abstracted from sensible matter, and from individual intelligible matter [Aquinas] |
| 9094 | Mathematical objects abstract both from perceived matter, and from particular substance [Aquinas] |
| 10505 | We can just think of an apple's colour, because the apple is not part of the colour's nature [Aquinas] |
| 10504 | Abstracting either treats something as separate, or thinks of it separately [Aquinas] |
| 10507 | Numbers and shapes are abstracted by ignoring their sensible qualities [Aquinas] |
| 9096 | The mind must produce by its own power an image of the individual species [Aquinas] |
| 11206 | The mind constructs complete attributions, based on the unified elements of the real world [Aquinas] |
| 3403 | We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs [Kim] |
| 3402 | If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction [Kim] |
| 1847 | The will must aim at happiness, but can choose the means [Aquinas] |
| 1857 | We don't have to will even perfect good, because we can choose not to think of it [Aquinas] |
| 1846 | The will can only want what it thinks is good [Aquinas] |
| 23180 | The will is the rational appetite [Aquinas] |
| 1850 | Without free will not only is ethical action meaningless, but also planning, commanding, praising and blaming [Aquinas] |
| 22112 | For humans good is accordance with reason, and bad is contrary to reason [Aquinas] |
| 22494 | We must know the end, know that it is the end, and know how to attain it [Aquinas] |
| 1851 | Good applies to goals, just as truth applies to ideas in the mind [Aquinas] |
| 23181 | All acts of virtue relate to justice, which is directed towards the common good [Aquinas] |
| 8009 | Aquinas wanted, not to escape desire, but to transform it for moral ends [Aquinas, by MacIntyre] |
| 23182 | Legal justice is supreme, because it directs the other virtues to the common good [Aquinas] |
| 22399 | Temperance prevents our passions from acting against reason [Aquinas] |
| 23177 | Justice directs our relations with others, because it denotes a kind of equality [Aquinas] |
| 23179 | People differ in their social degrees, and a particular type of right applies to each [Aquinas] |
| 23174 | Natural law is a rational creature's participation in eternal law [Aquinas] |
| 22113 | Right and wrong actions pertain to natural law, as perceived by practical reason [Aquinas] |
| 22114 | Tyrannical laws are irrational, and so not really laws [Aquinas] |
| 7291 | For Aquinas a war must be in a just cause, have proper authority, and aim at good [Aquinas, by Grayling] |
| 5508 | Aquinas says a fertilized egg is not human, and has no immortal soul [Aquinas, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 16687 | Bodies are three-dimensional substances [Aquinas] |
| 8430 | Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories [Kim] |
| 11207 | A cause can exist without its effect, but the effect cannot exist without its cause [Aquinas] |
| 3535 | All observable causes are merely epiphenomena [Kim] |
| 3401 | A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law [Kim] |
| 8396 | Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Kim, by Tooley] |
| 8429 | Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation [Kim] |
| 8428 | Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals [Kim] |
| 1859 | Even a sufficient cause doesn't compel its effect, because interference could interrupt the process [Aquinas] |
| 3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
| 4781 | Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Kim, by Psillos] |
| 15202 | Eternity coexists with passing time, as the centre of a circle coexists with its circumference [Aquinas] |
| 23178 | Divine law commands some things because they are good, while others are good because commanded [Aquinas] |
| 21251 | We can't know God's essence, so his existence can't be self-evident for us [Aquinas] |
| 5614 | If you assume that there must be a necessary being, you can't say which being has this quality [Kant on Aquinas] |
| 21269 | Way 1: the infinite chain of potential-to-actual movement has to have a first mover [Aquinas] |
| 21270 | Way 2: no effect without a cause, and this cannot go back to infinity, so there is First Cause [Aquinas] |
| 21271 | Way 3: contingent beings eventually vanish, so continuity needs a necessary being [Aquinas] |
| 21272 | Way 4: the source of all qualities is their maximum, so something (God) causes all perfections [Aquinas] |
| 21273 | Way 5: mindless things act towards an obvious end, so there is an intelligent director [Aquinas] |
| 20211 | Life aims at the Beatific Vision - of perfect happiness, and revealed truth [Aquinas, by Zagzebski] |
| 22106 | Aquinas saw angels as separated forms, rather than as made of 'spiritual matter' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| 16711 | Heretics should be eradicated like wolves [Aquinas] |
| 23306 | Humans have a non-physical faculty of reason, so they can be immortal [Aquinas, by Sorabji] |
| 1863 | If the soul achieves well-being in another life, it doesn't follow that I do [Aquinas] |
| 4412 | Those in bliss have their happiness increased by seeing the damned punished [Aquinas] |
| 21266 | God does not exist, because He is infinite and good, and so no evil should be discoverable [Aquinas] |
| 21274 | It is part of God's supreme goodness that He brings good even out of evil [Aquinas] |