117 ideas
16000 | Fixed ideas should be tackled aggressively [Kierkegaard] |
7578 | I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere [Kierkegaard] |
22087 | Philosophy fails to articulate the continual becoming of existence [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
22047 | Wherever there is painless contradiction there is also comedy [Kierkegaard] |
16012 | Philosophy can't be unbiased if it ignores language, as that is no more independent than individuals are [Kierkegaard] |
22092 | Kierkegaard's truth draws on authenticity, fidelity and honesty [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
15999 | Pure truth is for infinite beings only; I prefer endless striving for truth [Kierkegaard] |
22094 | Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
16005 | I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard] |
5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
20313 | The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard] |
3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard] |
3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
16013 | Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard] |
20298 | The traditional a priori is justified without experience; post-Quine it became unrevisable by experience [Rey] |
3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
20742 | The real subject is ethical, not cognitive [Kierkegaard] |
16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal [Kierkegaard] |
3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
20300 | Externalist synonymy is there being a correct link to the same external phenomena [Rey] |
3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
20293 | Analytic judgements can't be explained by contradiction, since that is what is assumed [Rey] |
20294 | 'Married' does not 'contain' its symmetry, nor 'bigger than' its transitivity [Rey] |
20297 | Analytic statements are undeniable (because of meaning), rather than unrevisable [Rey] |
20301 | The meaning properties of a term are those which explain how the term is typically used [Rey] |
20302 | An intrinsic language faculty may fix what is meaningful (as well as grammatical) [Rey] |
20303 | Research throws doubts on the claimed intuitions which support analyticity [Rey] |
20299 | If we claim direct insight to what is analytic, how do we know it is not sub-consciously empirical? [Rey] |
3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
22098 | Socrates neglects the gap between knowing what is good and doing good [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
22086 | The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
15998 | Perfect love is not in spite of imperfections; the imperfections must be loved as well [Kierkegaard] |
16003 | If people marry just because they are lonely, that is self-love, not love [Kierkegaard] |
3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
7579 | While big metaphysics is complete without ethics, personal philosophy emphasises ethics [Kierkegaard] |
7581 | Speculative philosophy loses the individual in a vast vision of humanity [Kierkegaard] |
22090 | For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
22096 | Anxiety is not a passing mood, but a response to human freedom [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
22097 | The ultimate in life is learning to be anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard] |
21909 | Ultimate knowledge is being anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard] |
20758 | Anxiety is staring into the yawning abyss of freedom [Kierkegaard] |
9305 | The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard] |
21910 | Our destiny is the highest pitch of world-weariness [Kierkegaard] |
5650 | Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
22095 | There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
20314 | People want to lose themselves in movements and history, instead of being individuals [Kierkegaard] |
7582 | Becoming what one is is a huge difficulty, because we strongly aspire to be something else [Kierkegaard] |
20747 | What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard] |
16001 | Life may be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards [Kierkegaard] |
22093 | Life is a repetition when what has been now becomes [Kierkegaard] |
16009 | When we seek our own 'freedom' we are just trying to avoid responsibility [Kierkegaard] |
22091 | Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
7586 | God does not think or exist; God creates, and is eternal [Kierkegaard] |
16006 | Either Abraham rises higher than universal ethics, or he is a mere murderer [Kierkegaard] |
7577 | Abraham was willing to suspend ethics, for a higher idea [Kierkegaard] |
20312 | God cannot be demonstrated objectively, because God is a subject, only existing inwardly [Kierkegaard] |
7580 | Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil [Kierkegaard] |
20735 | We need to see that Christianity cannot be understood [Kierkegaard] |
16008 | The best way to be a Christian is without 'Christianity' [Kierkegaard] |
7584 | Without risk there is no faith [Kierkegaard] |
22088 | Faith is like a dancer's leap, going up to God, but also back to earth [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
7583 | Faith is the highest passion in the sphere of human subjectivity [Kierkegaard] |