100 ideas
21405 | Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long] |
421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
20871 | Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero] |
5893 | A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero] |
1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
5891 | Philosophy is the collection of rational arguments [Cicero] |
5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
23728 | Analysis aims to express the full set of platitudes surrounding a given concept [Smith,M] |
414 | Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus] |
416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
2661 | Dialectic is speech cast in the form of logical argument [Cicero] |
23744 | Defining a set of things by paradigms doesn't pin them down enough [Smith,M] |
2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
2673 | There cannot be more than one truth [Cicero] |
21677 | How can the not-true fail to be false, or the not-false fail to be true? [Cicero] |
1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
2669 | Dialectic assumes that all statements are either true or false, but self-referential paradoxes are a big problem [Cicero] |
15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
427 | It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus] |
11091 | You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus] |
2064 | If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus] |
2664 | If we have complete healthy senses, what more could the gods give us? [Cicero] |
430 | Senses are no use if the soul is corrupt [Heraclitus] |
1500 | When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
2665 | How can there be a memory of what is false? [Cicero] |
20800 | Every true presentation can have a false one of the same quality [Cicero] |
417 | Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus] |
426 | Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus] |
431 | Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus] |
5879 | The soul is the heart, or blood in the heart, or part of the brain, of something living in heart or brain, or breath [Cicero] |
5884 | How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero] |
5887 | The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero] |
5886 | Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero] |
6029 | Whoever knows future causes knows everything that will be [Cicero] |
2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
5885 | Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero] |
23743 | Capturing all the common sense facts about rationality is almost impossible [Smith,M] |
21667 | Oratory and philosophy are closely allied; orators borrow from philosophy, and ornament it [Cicero] |
20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
23724 | A pure desire could be criticised if it were based on a false belief [Smith,M] |
23736 | A person can have a desire without feeling it [Smith,M] |
23723 | In the Humean account, desires are not true/false, or subject to any rational criticism [Smith,M] |
23735 | Subjects may be fallible about the desires which explain their actions [Smith,M] |
23738 | Humeans (unlike their opponents) say that desires and judgements can separate [Smith,M] |
23742 | If first- and second-order desires conflict, harmony does not require the second-order to win [Smith,M] |
23746 | Objective reasons to act might be the systematic desires of a fully rational person [Smith,M] |
23739 | Goals need desires, and so only desires can motivate us [Smith,M] |
23733 | Motivating reasons are psychological, while normative reasons are external [Smith,M] |
23740 | Humeans take maximising desire satisfaction as the normative reasons for actions [Smith,M] |
23745 | We cannot expect even fully rational people to converge on having the same desires for action [Smith,M] |
429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
21678 | If desire is not in our power then neither are choices, so we should not be praised or punished [Cicero] |
12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
23731 | 'Externalists' say moral judgements are not reasons, and maybe not even motives [Smith,M] |
23732 | A person could make a moral judgement without being in any way motivated by it [Smith,M] |
23729 | Moral internalism says a judgement of rightness is thereby motivating [Smith,M] |
23730 | 'Rationalism' says the rightness of an action is a reason to perform it [Smith,M] |
23727 | Expressivists count attitudes as 'moral' if they concern features of things, rather than their mere existence [Smith,M] |
23741 | Is valuing something a matter of believing or a matter of desiring? [Smith,M] |
419 | If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since nothing leads to it [Heraclitus] |
415 | If happiness is bodily pleasure, then oxen are happy when they have vetch to eat [Heraclitus] |
5155 | It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure [Heraclitus] |
2672 | Virtues must be very detached, to avoid being motivated by pleasure [Cicero] |
433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
5890 | We should not share the distress of others, but simply try to relieve it [Cicero] |
5894 | All men except philosophers fear poverty [Cicero] |
6031 | The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero] |
5895 | If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero] |
422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
424 | Reason tells us that all things are one [Heraclitus] |
5096 | Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
17539 | The sayings of Heraclitus are still correct, if we replace 'fire' with 'energy' [Heraclitus, by Heisenberg] |
3054 | Heraclitus said fire could be transformed to create the other lower elements [Heraclitus, by Diog. Laertius] |
15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
15659 | Purifying yourself with blood is as crazy as using mud to wash off mud [Heraclitus] |
1501 | In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus] |
2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |