61 ideas
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| 22693 | The works we value most are in sympathy with our own moral views [John,E] |
| 22694 | We should understand what is morally important in a story, without having to endorse it [John,E] |
| 22695 | We value morality in art because that is what we care about - but it is a contingent fact [John,E] |
| 22692 | A work can be morally and artistically excellent, despite rejecting moral truth [John,E] |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |