113 ideas
| 421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
| 1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
| 5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| 15801 | Many philosophers aim to understand metaphysics by studying ourselves [Chisholm] |
| 15802 | I use variables to show that each item remains the same entity throughout [Chisholm] |
| 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] |
| 22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
| 1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
| 22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
| 15832 | Events are states of affairs that occur at certain places and times [Chisholm] |
| 22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
| 15829 | The mark of a state of affairs is that it is capable of being accepted [Chisholm] |
| 15809 | A state of affairs pertains to a thing if it implies that it has some property [Chisholm] |
| 15828 | I propose that events and propositions are two types of states of affairs [Chisholm] |
| 13120 | Chisholm divides things into contingent and necessary, and then individuals, states and non-states [Chisholm, by Westerhoff] |
| 22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
| 15827 | Some properties, such as 'being a widow', can be seen as 'rooted outside the time they are had' [Chisholm] |
| 15830 | Some properties can never be had, like being a round square [Chisholm] |
| 22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
| 15804 | If some dogs are brown, that entails the properties of 'being brown' and 'being canine' [Chisholm] |
| 22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
| 15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
| 22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| 15810 | Maybe we can only individuate things by relating them to ourselves [Chisholm] |
| 15805 | Being the tallest man is an 'individual concept', but not a haecceity [Chisholm] |
| 15807 | A haecceity is a property had necessarily, and strictly confined to one entity [Chisholm] |
| 13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
| 11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
| 15814 | A peach is sweet and fuzzy, but it doesn't 'have' those qualities [Chisholm] |
| 12852 | If x is ever part of y, then y is necessarily such that x is part of y at any time that y exists [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 15808 | A traditional individual essence includes all of a thing's necessary characteristics [Chisholm] |
| 11966 | If there are essential properties, how do you find out what they are? [Chisholm] |
| 22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
| 22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 12851 | Intermittence is seen in a toy fort, which is dismantled then rebuilt with the same bricks [Chisholm, by Simons] |
| 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] |
| 15806 | The property of being identical with me is an individual concept [Chisholm] |
| 15826 | There is 'loose' identity between things if their properties, or truths about them, might differ [Chisholm] |
| 22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
| 22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
| 11965 | Could possible Adam gradually transform into Noah, and vice versa? [Chisholm] |
| 19569 | We have a basic epistemic duty to believe truth and avoid error [Chisholm, by Kvanvig] |
| 15819 | Do sense-data have structure, location, weight, and constituting matter? [Chisholm] |
| 15816 | 'I feel depressed' is more like 'he runs slowly' than like 'he has a red book' [Chisholm] |
| 15817 | If we can say a man senses 'redly', why not also 'rectangularly'? [Chisholm] |
| 15818 | So called 'sense-data' are best seen as 'modifications' of the person experiencing them [Chisholm] |
| 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] |
| 8790 | The 'doctrine of the given' is correct; some beliefs or statements are self-justifying [Chisholm] |
| 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] |
| 15831 | Explanations have states of affairs as their objects [Chisholm] |
| 15811 | I am picked out uniquely by my individual essence, which is 'being identical with myself' [Chisholm] |
| 15815 | Sartre says the ego is 'opaque'; I prefer to say that it is 'transparent' [Chisholm] |
| 15813 | People use 'I' to refer to themselves, with the meaning of their own individual essence [Chisholm] |
| 15803 | Bad theories of the self see it as abstract, or as a bundle, or as a process [Chisholm] |
| 3444 | If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm] |
| 3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm] |
| 9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm] |
| 15821 | Determinism claims that every event has a sufficient causal pre-condition [Chisholm] |
| 20062 | If a desire leads to a satisfactory result by an odd route, the causal theory looks wrong [Chisholm] |
| 20054 | There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm] |
| 3442 | Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused [Chisholm] |
| 3443 | Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? [Chisholm] |
| 15824 | There are mere omissions (through ignorance, perhaps), and people can 'commit an omission' [Chisholm] |
| 429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
| 12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
| 422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
| 15822 | The concept of physical necessity is basic to both causation, and to the concept of nature [Chisholm] |
| 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] |
| 15823 | Some propose a distinct 'agent causation', as well as 'event causation' [Chisholm] |
| 22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
| 22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
| 22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
| 22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
| 22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
| 22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
| 22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
| 3445 | Causation among objects relates either events or states [Chisholm] |
| 22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
| 22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
| 22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
| 22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
| 15820 | A 'law of nature' is just something which is physically necessary [Chisholm] |
| 12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
| 420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
| 1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 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] |