803 ideas
| 1922 | Spiritual qualities only become advantageous with the growth of wisdom [Plato] |
| 14179 | The finest branch of wisdom is justice and moderation in ordering states and families [Plato] |
| 354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible [Plato] |
| 13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| 13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
| 2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
| 291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
| 326 | For relaxation one can consider the world of change, instead of eternal things [Plato] |
| 160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
| 1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
| 315 | Philosophy is the supreme gift of the gods to mortals [Plato] |
| 16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
| 370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife [Plato] |
| 23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
| 15447 | We shouldn't always follow where the argument leads! [Lewis on Plato] |
| 125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
| 2056 | Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato] |
| 21461 | I tried to be unsystematic and piecemeal, but failed; my papers presuppose my other views [Lewis] |
| 16288 | Analysis reduces primitives and makes understanding explicit (without adding new knowledge) [Lewis] |
| 15545 | Armstrong's analysis seeks truthmakers rather than definitions [Lewis] |
| 16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
| 2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
| 166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
| 2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
| 23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
| 8605 | In addition to analysis of a concept, one can deny it, or accept it as primitive [Lewis] |
| 1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| 243 | It is foolish to quarrel with the mind's own reasoning processes [Plato] |
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
| 241 | We ought to follow where the argument leads us [Plato] |
| 2082 | A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato] |
| 362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument [Plato] |
| 21264 | Mortals are incapable of being fully rational [Plato] |
| 306 | Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato] |
| 192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| 13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| 2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
| 2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
| 4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 287 | Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato] |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| 1644 | Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato] |
| 1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
| 2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
| 20478 | In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato] |
| 2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
| 2052 | Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato] |
| 15457 | Interdefinition is useless by itself, but if we grasp one separately, we have them both [Lewis] |
| 16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
| 16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
| 15527 | Defining terms either enables elimination, or shows that they don't require elimination [Lewis] |
| 15854 | A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato] |
| 3993 | Arguments are nearly always open to challenge, but they help to explain a position rather than force people to believe [Lewis] |
| 251 | Truth has the supreme value, for both gods and men [Plato] |
| 10845 | To be true a sentence must express a proposition, and not be ambiguous or vague or just expressive [Lewis] |
| 9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 10847 | Truthmakers are about existential grounding, not about truth [Lewis] |
| 15546 | Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists [Lewis] |
| 15548 | Say 'truth is supervenient on being', but construe 'being' broadly [Lewis] |
| 15549 | If it were true that nothing at all existed, would that have a truthmaker? [Lewis] |
| 14399 | Presentism says only the present exists, so there is nothing for tensed truths to supervene on [Lewis] |
| 10846 | Truthmaker is correspondence, but without the requirement to be one-to-one [Lewis] |
| 13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
| 2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
| 16456 | For modality Lewis rejected boxes and diamonds, preferring worlds, and an index for the actual one [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 18395 | Sets are mereological sums of the singletons of their members [Lewis, by Armstrong] |
| 15496 | We can build set theory on singletons: classes are then fusions of subclasses, membership is the singleton [Lewis] |
| 10807 | Mathematics reduces to set theory, which reduces, with some mereology, to the singleton function [Lewis] |
| 15500 | Classes divide into subclasses in many ways, but into members in only one way [Lewis] |
| 15499 | A subclass of a subclass is itself a subclass; a member of a member is not in general a member [Lewis] |
| 15503 | We needn't accept this speck of nothingness, this black hole in the fabric of Reality! [Lewis] |
| 15498 | We can accept the null set, but there is no null class of anything [Lewis] |
| 15502 | There are four main reasons for asserting that there is an empty set [Lewis] |
| 10809 | We can accept the null set, but not a null class, a class lacking members [Lewis] |
| 10811 | The null set plays the role of last resort, for class abstracts and for existence [Lewis] |
| 10812 | The null set is not a little speck of sheer nothingness, a black hole in Reality [Lewis] |
| 15506 | If we don't understand the singleton, then we don't understand classes [Lewis] |
| 15497 | We can replace the membership relation with the member-singleton relation (plus mereology) [Lewis] |
| 15511 | If singleton membership is external, why is an object a member of one rather than another? [Lewis] |
| 15513 | Maybe singletons have a structure, of a thing and a lasso? [Lewis] |
| 10813 | What on earth is the relationship between a singleton and an element? [Lewis] |
| 10814 | Are all singletons exact intrinsic duplicates? [Lewis] |
| 15507 | Set theory has some unofficial axioms, generalisations about how to understand it [Lewis] |
| 10191 | Set theory reduces to a mereological theory with singletons as the only atoms [Lewis, by MacBride] |
| 10775 | The axiom of choice now seems acceptable and obvious (if it is meaningful) [Tharp] |
| 15508 | If singletons are where their members are, then so are all sets [Lewis] |
| 15514 | A huge part of Reality is only accepted as existing if you have accepted set theory [Lewis] |
| 15523 | Set theory isn't innocent; it generates infinities from a single thing; but mathematics needs it [Lewis] |
| 15845 | It seems absurd that seeing a person's limbs, the one is many, and yet the many are one [Plato] |
| 10806 | Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology [Lewis] |
| 10766 | Logic is either for demonstration, or for characterizing structures [Tharp] |
| 10767 | Elementary logic is complete, but cannot capture mathematics [Tharp] |
| 10769 | Second-order logic isn't provable, but will express set-theory and classic problems [Tharp] |
| 10762 | In sentential logic there is a simple proof that all truth functions can be reduced to 'not' and 'and' [Tharp] |
| 10816 | We can use mereology to simulate quantification over relations [Lewis] |
| 13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
| 13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
| 13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
| 13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
| 10776 | The main quantifiers extend 'and' and 'or' to infinite domains [Tharp] |
| 15533 | We can quantify over fictions by quantifying for real over their names [Lewis] |
| 15731 | Quantification sometimes commits to 'sets', but sometimes just to pluralities (or 'classes') [Lewis] |
| 15525 | Plural quantification lacks a complete axiom system [Lewis] |
| 15518 | I like plural quantification, but am not convinced of its connection with second-order logic [Lewis] |
| 10774 | There are at least five unorthodox quantifiers that could be used [Tharp] |
| 15534 | We could quantify over impossible objects - as bundles of properties [Lewis] |
| 14212 | A consistent theory just needs one model; isomorphic versions will do too, and large domains provide those [Lewis] |
| 10777 | Skolem mistakenly inferred that Cantor's conceptions were illusory [Tharp] |
| 10773 | The Löwenheim-Skolem property is a limitation (e.g. can't say there are uncountably many reals) [Tharp] |
| 10765 | Soundness would seem to be an essential requirement of a proof procedure [Tharp] |
| 10763 | Completeness and compactness together give axiomatizability [Tharp] |
| 10770 | If completeness fails there is no algorithm to list the valid formulas [Tharp] |
| 10771 | Compactness is important for major theories which have infinitely many axioms [Tharp] |
| 10772 | Compactness blocks infinite expansion, and admits non-standard models [Tharp] |
| 10764 | A complete logic has an effective enumeration of the valid formulas [Tharp] |
| 10768 | Effective enumeration might be proved but not specified, so it won't guarantee knowledge [Tharp] |
| 11259 | How can you seek knowledge of something if you don't know it? [Plato] |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| 8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
| 9867 | It is absurd to define a circle, but not be able to recognise a real one [Plato] |
| 13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? [Plato] |
| 9865 | Daily arithmetic counts unequal things, but pure arithmetic equalises them [Plato] |
| 10808 | Mathematics is generalisations about singleton functions [Lewis] |
| 15524 | Zermelo's model of arithmetic is distinctive because it rests on a primitive of set theory [Lewis] |
| 15517 | Giving up classes means giving up successful mathematics because of dubious philosophy [Lewis] |
| 15515 | To be a structuralist, you quantify over relations [Lewis] |
| 10815 | We don't need 'abstract structures' to have structural truths about successor functions [Lewis] |
| 9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
| 9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
| 8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
| 10216 | We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato] |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| 9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
| 15532 | 'Allists' embrace the existence of all controversial entities; 'noneists' reject all but the obvious ones [Lewis] |
| 15535 | We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist [Lewis] |
| 15789 | Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting' [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 10470 | There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 15520 | Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified [Lewis] |
| 14401 | Every proposition is entirely about being [Lewis] |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| 11278 | What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato] |
| 1643 | If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato] |
| 21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| 7022 | To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato] |
| 15540 | You can't deny temporary intrinsic properties by saying the properties are relations (to times) [Lewis] |
| 2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
| 2060 | There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato] |
| 2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
| 15567 | Some events involve no change; they must, because causal histories involve unchanges [Lewis] |
| 15561 | The events that suit semantics may not be the events that suit causation [Lewis] |
| 15565 | Events have inbuilt essences, as necessary conditions for their occurrence [Lewis] |
| 15566 | Events are classes, and so there is a mereology of their parts [Lewis] |
| 15564 | An event is a property of a unique space-time region [Lewis] |
| 8607 | Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability [Lewis] |
| 3990 | The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth [Lewis] |
| 9650 | Supervenience concerns whether things could differ, so it is a modal notion [Lewis] |
| 3991 | Where pixels make up a picture, supervenience is reduction [Lewis] |
| 8606 | A supervenience thesis is a denial of independent variation [Lewis] |
| 16210 | Humean supervenience says the world is just a vast mosaic of qualities in space-time [Lewis] |
| 15501 | We have no idea of a third sort of thing, that isn't an individual, a class, or their mixture [Lewis] |
| 15504 | Atomless gunk is an individual whose parts all have further proper parts [Lewis] |
| 14503 | If a mixture does not contain measure and proportion, it is corrupted and destroyed [Plato] |
| 15857 | Any mixture which lacks measure and proportion doesn't even count as a mixture at all [Plato] |
| 7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| 14213 | Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis] |
| 8580 | Materialism is (roughly) that two worlds cannot differ without differing physically [Lewis] |
| 1641 | Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato] |
| 8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
| 15543 | How do things combine to make states of affairs? Constituents can repeat, and fail to combine [Lewis] |
| 16458 | Semantic vagueness involves alternative and equal precisifications of the language [Lewis] |
| 9057 | Vagueness is semantic indecision: we haven't settled quite what our words are meant to express [Lewis] |
| 9671 | Whether or not France is hexagonal depends on your standards of precision [Lewis] |
| 15538 | Semantic indecision explains vagueness (if we have precisifications to be undecided about) [Lewis] |
| 10784 | Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato] |
| 13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
| 16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 15751 | Surely 'slept in by Washington' is a property of some bed? [Lewis] |
| 8571 | Universals are wholly present in their instances, whereas properties are spread around [Lewis] |
| 15735 | Properties don't have degree; they are determinate, and things have varying relations to them [Lewis] |
| 9656 | The 'abundant' properties are just any bizarre property you fancy [Lewis] |
| 15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
| 14979 | Being alone doesn't guarantee intrinsic properties; 'being alone' is itself extrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15454 | Extrinsic properties come in degrees, with 'brother' less extrinsic than 'sibling' [Lewis] |
| 15742 | A disjunctive property can be unnatural, but intrinsic if its disjuncts are intrinsic [Lewis] |
| 15397 | If a global intrinsic never varies between possible duplicates, all necessary properties are intrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15398 | Global intrinsic may make necessarily coextensive properties both intrinsic or both extrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
| 15400 | We must avoid circularity between what is intrinsic and what is natural [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15458 | A property is 'intrinsic' iff it can never differ between duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15459 | Ellipsoidal stars seem to have an intrinsic property which depends on other objects [Lewis] |
| 15741 | All of the natural properties are included among the intrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 15752 | We might try defining the natural properties by a short list of them [Lewis] |
| 10717 | Natural properties figure in the analysis of similarity in intrinsic respects [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 16217 | Lewisian natural properties fix reference of predicates, through a principle of charity [Lewis, by Hawley] |
| 8613 | Objects are demarcated by density and chemistry, and natural properties belong in what is well demarcated [Lewis] |
| 8585 | Reference partly concerns thought and language, partly eligibility of referent by natural properties [Lewis] |
| 8586 | Natural properties tend to belong to well-demarcated things, typically loci of causal chains [Lewis] |
| 8589 | For us, a property being natural is just an aspect of its featuring in the contents of our attitudes [Lewis] |
| 15460 | All perfectly natural properties are intrinsic [Lewis, by Lewis] |
| 15726 | Natural properties fix resemblance and powers, and are picked out by universals [Lewis] |
| 14996 | Natural properties give similarity, joint carving, intrinsicness, specificity, homogeneity... [Lewis] |
| 15744 | We can't define natural properties by resemblance, if they are used to explain resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15743 | Defining natural properties by means of laws of nature is potentially circular [Lewis] |
| 15740 | I don't take 'natural' properties to be fixed by the nature of one possible world [Lewis] |
| 16262 | Sparse properties rest either on universals, or on tropes, or on primitive naturalness [Lewis, by Maudlin] |
| 15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
| 7031 | Lewis says properties are sets of actual and possible objects [Lewis, by Heil] |
| 8572 | Any class of things is a property, no matter how whimsical or irrelevant [Lewis] |
| 15464 | The distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties leads to confusion [Lewis] |
| 18433 | There are far more properties than any brain could ever encodify [Lewis] |
| 8604 | We need properties as semantic values for linguistic expressions [Lewis] |
| 15739 | There is the property of belonging to a set, so abundant properties are as numerous as the sets [Lewis] |
| 15563 | Properties are very abundant (unlike universals), and are used for semantics and higher-order variables [Lewis] |
| 10723 | A property is the set of its actual and possible instances [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 14499 | Properties are classes of possible and actual concrete particulars [Lewis, by Koslicki] |
| 4038 | Properties are sets of their possible instances (which separates 'renate' from 'cordate') [Lewis, by Mellor/Oliver] |
| 15399 | The property of being F is identical with the set of objects, in all possible worlds, which are F [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15732 | Properties don't seem to be sets, because different properties can have the same set [Lewis] |
| 15733 | Accidentally coextensive properties come apart when we include their possible instances [Lewis] |
| 15734 | If a property is relative, such as being a father or son, then set membership seems relative too [Lewis] |
| 15516 | A property is any class of possibilia [Lewis] |
| 9655 | Trilateral and triangular seem to be coextensive sets in all possible worlds [Lewis] |
| 16290 | I believe in properties, which are sets of possible individuals [Lewis] |
| 9653 | It would be easiest to take a property as the set of its instances [Lewis] |
| 9657 | You must accept primitive similarity to like tropes, but tropes give a good account of it [Lewis] |
| 15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15750 | Tropes need a similarity primitive, so they cannot be used to explain similarity [Lewis] |
| 15749 | Trope theory (unlike universals) needs a primitive notion of being duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15748 | Trope theory needs a primitive notion for what unites some tropes [Lewis] |
| 9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
| 15463 | All dispositions must have causal bases [Lewis] |
| 15120 | Lewisian properties have powers because of their relationships to other properties [Lewis, by Hawthorne] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 15461 | A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis] |
| 8573 | Most properties are causally irrelevant, and we can't spot the relevant ones. [Lewis] |
| 8569 | I suspend judgements about universals, but their work must be done [Lewis] |
| 15745 | Universals recur, are multiply located, wholly present, make things overlap, and are held in common [Lewis] |
| 15453 | The main rivals to universals are resemblance or natural-class nominalism, or sparse trope theory [Lewis] |
| 15746 | If particles were just made of universals, similar particles would be the same particle [Lewis] |
| 2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| 15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
| 21961 | Physics aims to discover which universals actually exist [Lewis, by Moore,AW] |
| 153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| 15747 | Universals aren't parts of things, because that relationship is transitive, and universals need not be [Lewis] |
| 154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| 5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 10422 | The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato] |
| 12042 | Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas] |
| 307 | Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato] |
| 318 | In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato] |
| 321 | For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato] |
| 360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato] |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 16122 | Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato] |
| 1607 | Diotima said the Forms are the objects of desire in philosophical discourse [Plato, by Roochnik] |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| 17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| 1 | There is only one source for all beauty [Plato] |
| 368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them [Plato] |
| 304 | Beautiful things must be different from beauty itself, but beauty itself must be present in each of them [Plato] |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| 317 | The universe is basically an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it [Plato] |
| 4447 | If the good is one, is it unchanged when it is in particulars, and is it then separated from itself? [Plato] |
| 190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
| 5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 8576 | The One over Many problem (in predication terms) deserves to be neglected (by ostriches) [Lewis] |
| 15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
| 8570 | To have a property is to be a member of a class, usually a class of things [Lewis] |
| 8574 | Class Nominalism and Resemblance Nominalism are pretty much the same [Lewis] |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 15455 | Total intrinsic properties give us what a thing is [Lewis] |
| 13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
| 15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| 15856 | A thing can become one or many, depending on how we talk about it [Plato] |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 15537 | If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many [Lewis] |
| 15536 | We have one cloud, but many possible boundaries and aggregates for it [Lewis] |
| 15452 | We could not uphold a truthmaker for 'Fa' without structures [Lewis] |
| 15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
| 15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
| 15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
| 15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
| 15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
| 15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
| 15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| 374 | If one object is divided into its parts, someone can then say that one are many and many is one [Plato] |
| 15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
| 14748 | The many are many and the one is one, so they can't be identical [Lewis] |
| 6129 | Lewis affirms 'composition as identity' - that an object is no more than its parts [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| 2084 | If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato] |
| 14210 | A gerrymandered mereological sum can be a mess, but still have natural joints [Lewis] |
| 15512 | In mereology no two things consist of the same atoms [Lewis] |
| 15519 | Trout-turkeys exist, despite lacking cohesion, natural joints and united causal power [Lewis] |
| 15521 | Given cats, a fusion of cats adds nothing further to reality [Lewis] |
| 15522 | The one has different truths from the many; it is one rather than many, one rather than six [Lewis] |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| 14244 | Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions [Oliver/Smiley on Lewis] |
| 10660 | A commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment; it is them and they are it [Lewis] |
| 10810 | I say that absolutely any things can have a mereological fusion [Lewis] |
| 9667 | Mereological composition is unrestricted: any class of things has a mereological sum [Lewis] |
| 13268 | There are no restrictions on composition, because they would be vague, and composition can't be vague [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
| 15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
| 15843 | The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato] |
| 15844 | A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato] |
| 10566 | Lewis prefers giving up singletons to giving up sums [Lewis, by Fine,K] |
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| 13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
| 21259 | To grasp a thing we need its name, its definition, and what it really is [Plato] |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| 13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
| 13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
| 9663 | A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis] |
| 14737 | Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 9664 | Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis] |
| 9665 | There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis] |
| 16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers [Plato] |
| 19280 | I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis] |
| 15968 | Identity is simple - absolutely everything is self-identical, and nothing is identical to another thing [Lewis] |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| 15969 | Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis] |
| 13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
| 16079 | De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker] |
| 11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 14283 | A conditional probability does not measure the probability of the truth of any proposition [Lewis, by Edgington] |
| 14361 | Lewis says indicative conditionals are truth-functional [Lewis, by Jackson] |
| 8434 | In good counterfactuals the consequent holds in world like ours except that the antecedent is true [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| 8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
| 15462 | Backtracking counterfactuals go from supposed events to their required causal antecedents [Lewis] |
| 9660 | The impossible can be imagined as long as it is a bit vague [Lewis] |
| 9669 | There are no free-floating possibilia; they have mates in a world, giving them extrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
| 16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
| 16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
| 12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
| 9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
| 10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
| 15790 | Lewis can't know possible worlds without first knowing what is possible or impossible [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 18415 | The actual world is just the world you are in [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| 15791 | What are the ontological grounds for grouping possibilia into worlds? [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
| 16284 | Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis] |
| 16286 | Linguistic possible worlds need a complete supply of unique names for each thing [Lewis] |
| 16287 | Maximal consistency for a world seems a modal distinction, concerning what could be true together [Lewis] |
| 9662 | Linguistic possible worlds have problems of inconsistencies, no indiscernibles, and vocabulary [Lewis] |
| 7690 | If sets exist, then defining worlds as proposition sets implies an odd distinction between existing and actual [Jacquette on Lewis] |
| 11979 | It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis] |
| 15530 | A logically determinate name names the same thing in every possible world [Lewis] |
| 16994 | Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis] |
| 11974 | Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis] |
| 11975 | If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis] |
| 11977 | Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis] |
| 14404 | The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 5440 | A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner] |
| 5441 | Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis] |
| 16291 | In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis] |
| 11903 | Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider [Lewis, by Mackie,P] |
| 15129 | Haecceitism implies de re differences but qualitative identity [Lewis] |
| 9670 | Extreme haecceitism says you might possibly be a poached egg [Lewis] |
| 2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
| 16120 | Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality [Plato] |
| 2080 | Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato] |
| 16126 | Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato] |
| 20184 | The only real evil is loss of knowledge [Plato] |
| 20219 | True opinions only become really valuable when they are tied down by reasons [Plato] |
| 20185 | The most important things in life are wisdom and knowledge [Plato] |
| 16392 | A content is a property, and believing it is self-ascribing that property [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| 12899 | The timid student has knowledge without belief, lacking confidence in their correct answer [Lewis] |
| 2050 | It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato] |
| 2076 | How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato] |
| 389 | How can you be certain about aspects of the world if they aren't constant? [Plato] |
| 12897 | To say S knows P, but cannot eliminate not-P, sounds like a contradiction [Lewis] |
| 5985 | Seeking and learning are just recollection [Plato] |
| 5986 | The slave boy learns geometry from questioning, not teaching, so it is recollection [Plato] |
| 357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
| 359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
| 5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
| 9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
| 2045 | Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| 2067 | Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato] |
| 15509 | Some say qualities are parts of things - as repeatable universals, or as particulars [Lewis] |
| 2068 | With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato] |
| 2078 | You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato] |
| 1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
| 2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
| 2069 | Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato] |
| 151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
| 334 | Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato] |
| 174 | True opinion without reason is midway between wisdom and ignorance [Plato] |
| 2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
| 1923 | As a guide to action, true opinion is as good as knowledge [Plato] |
| 2089 | An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato] |
| 12898 | Justification is neither sufficient nor necessary for knowledge [Lewis] |
| 2085 | Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato] |
| 2091 | Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato] |
| 2087 | A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato] |
| 2090 | A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato] |
| 2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
| 2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
| 16279 | General causal theories of knowledge are refuted by mathematics [Lewis] |
| 303 | Say how many teeth the other has, then count them. If you are right, we will trust your other claims [Plato] |
| 12895 | Knowing is context-sensitive because the domain of quantification varies [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
| 19562 | We have knowledge if alternatives are eliminated, but appropriate alternatives depend on context [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
| 13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
| 2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
| 1919 | You don't need to learn what you know, and how do you seek for what you don't know? [Plato] |
| 335 | Do the gods also hold different opinions about what is right and honourable? [Plato] |
| 2054 | Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato] |
| 2053 | If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato] |
| 2059 | How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato] |
| 165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
| 15528 | A Ramsey sentence just asserts that a theory can be realised, without saying by what [Lewis] |
| 15526 | There is a method for defining new scientific terms just using the terms we already understand [Lewis] |
| 15529 | It is better to have one realisation of a theory than many - but it may not always be possible [Lewis] |
| 15531 | The Ramsey sentence of a theory says that it has at least one realisation [Lewis] |
| 9661 | Induction is just reasonable methods of inferring the unobserved from the observed [Lewis] |
| 9652 | To just expect unexamined emeralds to be grue would be totally unreasonable [Lewis] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them [Plato] |
| 9658 | An explanation tells us how an event was caused [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 16280 | Often explanaton seeks fundamental laws, rather than causal histories [Lewis] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 16274 | If the well-ordering of a pack of cards was by shuffling, the explanation would make it more surprising [Lewis] |
| 3995 | A mind is an organ of representation [Lewis] |
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| 13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
| 6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
| 6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
| 9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
| 5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
| 21260 | Soul is what is defined by 'self-generating motion' [Plato] |
| 2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
| 1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato] |
| 8209 | Part of the folk concept of qualia is what makes recognition and comparison possible [Lewis] |
| 15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
| 191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
| 276 | My individuality is my soul, which carries my body around [Plato] |
| 364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another [Plato] |
| 180 | We call a person the same throughout life, but all their attributes change [Plato] |
| 181 | Only the gods stay unchanged; we replace our losses with similar acquisitions [Plato] |
| 330 | No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato] |
| 8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
| 7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
| 7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
| 7444 | Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain [Lewis] |
| 7445 | The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis] |
| 3994 | Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis] |
| 8579 | Psychophysical identity implies the possibility of idealism or panpsychism [Lewis] |
| 3989 | I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis] |
| 7443 | A theory must be mixed, to cover qualia without behaviour, and behaviour without qualia [Lewis, by PG] |
| 18416 | Attitudes involve properties (not propositions), and belief is self-ascribing the properties [Lewis, by Solomon] |
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 3992 | Folk psychology makes good predictions, by associating mental states with causal roles [Lewis] |
| 16390 | Lewis's popular centred worlds approach gives an attitude an index of world, subject and time [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| 3996 | Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis] |
| 3998 | If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 3997 | Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis] |
| 3999 | A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 4000 | Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis] |
| 8901 | Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively [Lewis] |
| 8904 | The Way of Abstraction says an incomplete description of a concrete entity is the complete abstraction [Lewis] |
| 8938 | The Way of Example compares donkeys and numbers, but what is the difference, and what are numbers? [Lewis] |
| 8903 | Abstracta can be causal: sets can be causes or effects; there can be universal effects; events may be sets [Lewis] |
| 8902 | If abstractions are non-spatial, then both sets and universals seem to have locations [Lewis] |
| 8905 | If universals or tropes are parts of things, then abstraction picks out those parts [Lewis] |
| 8906 | If we can abstract the extrinsic relations and features of objects, abstraction isn't universals or tropes [Lewis] |
| 8907 | The abstract direction of a line is the equivalence class of it and all lines parallel to it [Lewis] |
| 8908 | For most sets, the concept of equivalence is too artificial to explain abstraction [Lewis] |
| 15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
| 16289 | We can't account for an abstraction as 'from' something if the something doesn't exist [Lewis] |
| 18418 | A theory of perspectival de se content gives truth conditions relative to an agent [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| 16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
| 14215 | Causal theories of reference make errors in reference easy [Lewis] |
| 14209 | Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis] |
| 8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
| 9654 | A proposition is a set of entire possible worlds which instantiate a particular property [Lewis] |
| 15736 | A proposition is the property of being a possible world where it holds true [Lewis] |
| 15738 | Propositions can't have syntactic structure if they are just sets of worlds [Lewis] |
| 159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
| 5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| 5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
| 158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
| 283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
| 8614 | A sophisticated principle of charity sometimes imputes error as well as truth [Lewis] |
| 8615 | We need natural properties in order to motivate the principle of charity [Lewis] |
| 15539 | Basic to pragmatics is taking a message in a way that makes sense of it [Lewis] |
| 135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| 16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
| 203 | Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato] |
| 1655 | If goodness needs true opinion but not knowledge, you can skip the 'examined life' [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 4026 | Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony [Plato] |
| 390 | If goodness involves moderation and proportion, then it seems to be found in beauty [Plato] |
| 299 | What is fine is always difficult [Plato] |
| 172 | Love of ugliness is impossible [Plato] |
| 173 | Beauty and goodness are the same [Plato] |
| 155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
| 249 | People who value beauty above virtue insult the soul by placing the body above it [Plato] |
| 183 | Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato] |
| 184 | Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato] |
| 282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| 16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
| 2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
| 2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
| 2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
| 297 | What is fine is the parent of goodness [Plato] |
| 168 | To understand morality requires a soul [Plato] |
| 2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
| 302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| 143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
| 4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 1590 | The just man does not harm his enemies, but benefits everyone [Plato] |
| 14177 | Love assists men in achieving merit and happiness [Plato] |
| 179 | Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good [Plato] |
| 176 | Love follows beauty, wisdom is exceptionally beautiful, so love follows wisdom [Plato] |
| 139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| 128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| 202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
| 2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
| 2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
| 392 | Neither intellect nor pleasure are the good, because they are not perfect and self-sufficient [Plato] |
| 2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
| 2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
| 4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 295 | The good is beautiful [Plato] |
| 2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
| 2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
| 391 | The good involves beauty, proportion and truth [Plato] |
| 393 | Good first, then beauty, then reason, then knowledge, then pleasure [Plato, by PG] |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| 177 | If a person is good they will automatically become happy [Plato] |
| 301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
| 2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
| 4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
| 2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
| 265 | An action is only just if it is performed by someone with a just character and outlook [Plato] |
| 193 | Some things are good even though they are not beneficial to men [Plato] |
| 269 | Attempted murder is like real murder, but we should respect the luck which avoided total ruin [Plato] |
| 14178 | Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato] |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 332 | One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance [Plato] |
| 385 | Some of the pleasures and pains we feel are false [Plato] |
| 387 | A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain [Plato] |
| 2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
| 371 | Reason, memory, truth and wisdom are far better than pleasure, for those who can attain them [Plato] |
| 376 | Would you prefer a life of pleasure without reason, or one of reason without pleasure? [Plato] |
| 382 | It is unlikely that the gods feel either pleasure or pain [Plato] |
| 240 | It would be strange if the gods rewarded those who experienced the most pleasure in life [Plato] |
| 197 | Some pleasures are not good, and some pains are not evil [Plato] |
| 200 | People tend only to disapprove of pleasure if it leads to pain, or prevents future pleasure [Plato] |
| 2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
| 157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
| 373 | Pleasure is certainly very pleasant, but it doesn't follow that all pleasures are good [Plato] |
| 379 | The good must be sufficient and perfect, and neither intellect nor pleasure are that [Plato] |
| 381 | We feel pleasure when we approach our natural state of harmony [Plato] |
| 2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| 386 | Intense pleasure and pain are not felt in a good body, but in a worthless one [Plato] |
| 2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
| 264 | The conquest of pleasure is the noblest victory of all [Plato] |
| 132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
| 2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
| 4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
| 2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
| 1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
| 388 | Hedonists must say that someone in pain is bad, even if they are virtuous [Plato] |
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| 377 | If you lived a life of maximum pleasure, would you still be lacking anything? [Plato] |
| 378 | A life of pure pleasure with no intellect is the life of a jellyfish [Plato] |
| 2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
| 19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
| 5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
| 7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
| 8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| 13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| 170 | The only slavery which is not dishonourable is slavery to excellence [Plato] |
| 144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
| 5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 4332 | Virtue is a concord of reason and emotion, with pleasure and pain trained to correct ends [Plato] |
| 248 | A serious desire for moral excellence is very rare indeed [Plato] |
| 253 | Every crime is the result of excessive self-love [Plato] |
| 263 | The only worthwhile life is one devoted to physical and moral perfection [Plato] |
| 120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
| 182 | The first step on the right path is the contemplation of physical beauty when young [Plato] |
| 1927 | It seems that virtue is neither natural nor taught, but is a divine gift [Plato] |
| 189 | If we punish wrong-doers, it shows that we believe virtue can be taught [Plato] |
| 235 | Virtue is the aim of all laws [Plato] |
| 1913 | Is virtue taught, or achieved by practice, or a natural aptitude, or what? [Plato] |
| 1921 | If virtue is a type of knowledge then it ought to be taught [Plato] |
| 204 | Socrates is contradicting himself in claiming virtue can't be taught, but that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| 188 | Socrates did not believe that virtue could be taught [Plato] |
| 118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
| 305 | Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato] |
| 281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
| 1918 | How can you know part of virtue without knowing the whole? [Plato] |
| 2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
| 277 | The Guardians must aim to discover the common element in the four cardinal virtues [Plato] |
| 1916 | Even if virtues are many and various, they must have something in common to make them virtues [Plato] |
| 2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| 254 | Excessive laughter and tears must be avoided [Plato] |
| 119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
| 2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
| 266 | Injustice is the mastery of the soul by bad feelings, even if they do not lead to harm [Plato] |
| 23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
| 129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
| 293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
| 4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
| 242 | The best people are produced where there is no excess of wealth or poverty [Plato] |
| 256 | Virtue and great wealth are incompatible [Plato] |
| 351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato] |
| 294 | People say that friendship exists only between good men [Plato] |
| 156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
| 137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
| 19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
| 10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
| 23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
| 245 | Totalitarian states destroy friendships and community spirit [Plato] |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| 22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
| 239 | Education in virtue produces citizens who are active but obedient [Plato] |
| 2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
| 262 | Men and women should qualify equally for honours on merit [Plato] |
| 123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
| 1402 | Friendship is impossible between master and slave, even if they are made equal [Plato] |
| 124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
| 236 | Sound laws achieve the happiness of those who observe them [Plato] |
| 259 | Justice is granting the equality which unequals deserve [Plato] |
| 322 | Intelligence is the result of rational teaching; true opinion can result from irrational persuasion [Plato] |
| 2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
| 257 | Mathematics has the widest application of any subject on the curriculum [Plato] |
| 331 | Bad governments prevent discussion, and discourage the study of virtue [Plato] |
| 238 | Children's games should channel their pleasures into adult activity [Plato] |
| 260 | Control of education is the key office of state, and should go to the best citizen [Plato] |
| 2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
| 250 | The best way to educate the young is not to rebuke them, but to set a good example [Plato] |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| 4331 | Education is channelling a child's feelings into the right course before it understands why [Plato] |
| 2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
| 1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
| 298 | While sex is very pleasant, it should be in secret, as it looks contemptible [Plato] |
| 311 | The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato] |
| 310 | The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato] |
| 275 | Creation is not for you; you exist for the sake of creation [Plato] |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| 325 | We must consider the four basic shapes as too small to see, only becoming visible in large numbers [Plato] |
| 15562 | Causation is a general relation derived from instances of causal dependence [Lewis] |
| 327 | There are two types of cause, the necessary and the divine [Plato] |
| 13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! [Plato] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
| 8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
| 8433 | There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| 10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
| 8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
| 17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
| 8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
| 8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| 8608 | Counterfactuals 'backtrack' if a different present implies a different past [Lewis] |
| 8584 | Causal counterfactuals must avoid backtracking, to avoid epiphenomena and preemption [Lewis] |
| 9659 | Causation is when at the closest world without the cause, there is no effect either [Lewis] |
| 8581 | Physics discovers laws and causal explanations, and also the natural properties required [Lewis] |
| 15727 | Physics aims for a list of natural properties [Lewis] |
| 9409 | Laws are the best axiomatization of the total history of world events or facts [Lewis, by Mumford] |
| 9423 | If simplicity and strength are criteria for laws of nature, that introduces a subjective element [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 9424 | A number of systematizations might tie as the best and most coherent system [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 9419 | A law of nature is a general axiom of the deductive system that is best for simplicity and strength [Lewis] |
| 9425 | Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 8611 | A law of nature is any regularity that earns inclusion in the ideal system [Lewis] |
| 4398 | An event causes another just if the second event would not have happened without the first [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
| 9426 | The world is just a vast mosaic of little matters of local particular fact [Lewis] |
| 9666 | It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis] |
| 314 | Heavenly movements gave us the idea of time, and caused us to inquire about the heavens [Plato] |
| 23019 | The interesting time travel is when personal and external time come apart [Lewis, by Baron/Miller] |
| 23021 | Lewis said it might just be that travellers to the past can't kill their grandfathers [Lewis, by Baron/Miller] |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 312 | Time came into existence with the heavens, so that there will be a time when they can be dissolved [Plato] |
| 369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force [Plato] |
| 309 | Clearly the world is good, so its maker must have been concerned with the eternal, not with change [Plato] |
| 273 | Movement is transmitted through everything, and it must have started with self-generated motion [Plato] |
| 148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
| 308 | If the cosmos is an object of perception then it must be continually changing [Plato] |
| 13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
| 279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |
| 13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |
| 152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
| 175 | Gods are not lovers of wisdom, because they are already wise [Plato] |
| 2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
| 337 | It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato] |
| 336 | Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? (the 'Euthyphro Question') [Plato] |
| 2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
| 8004 | In 'The Laws', to obey the law is to be obey god [Plato, by MacIntyre] |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| 21258 | The only possible beginning for the endless motions of reality is something self-generated [Plato] |
| 21261 | Self-moving soul has to be the oldest thing there is [Plato] |
| 21257 | Self-generating motion is clearly superior to all other kinds of motion [Plato] |
| 274 | Soul must be the cause of all the opposites, such as good and evil or beauty and ugliness [Plato] |
| 21263 | If all the motions of nature reflect calculations of reason, then the best kind of soul must direct it [Plato] |
| 14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
| 150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
| 149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
| 278 | If astronomical movements are seen as necessary instead of by divine will, this leads to atheism [Plato] |
| 21265 | The heavens must be full of gods, controlling nature either externally or from within [Plato] |
| 21262 | There must be at least two souls controlling the cosmos, one doing good, the other the opposite [Plato] |
| 363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato] |
| 146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |
| 2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
| 13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
| 2057 | There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato] |
| 2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |