100 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| 13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
| 16252 | Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap] |
| 1489 | Modern philosophy tends to be a theory-constructing extension of science, but there is also problem-solving [Nagel] |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 13342 | Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap] |
| 13251 | Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap] |
| 1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
| 13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
| 8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
| 8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
| 4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
| 13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| 13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| 13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
| 14305 | In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap] |
| 1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| 3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
| 13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| 3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| 1547 | Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras] |
| 3305 | There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 3317 | You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 3313 | If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
| 1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
| 247 | God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 606 | Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 612 | Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
| 18699 | Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button] |
| 13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| 13048 | Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon] |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| 3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| 3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| 3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
| 3288 | Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel] |
| 4883 | Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel] |
| 3287 | We can't be objective about experience [Nagel] |
| 4989 | Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel] |
| 12131 | All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody] |
| 4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
| 11968 | The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan] |
| 18285 | All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap] |
| 6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
| 6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
| 3284 | There is no one theory of how to act (or what to believe) [Nagel] |
| 6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| 3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
| 1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
| 6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
| 205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| 6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
| 3282 | The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel] |
| 3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| 6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| 3278 | An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel] |
| 6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
| 3275 | Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel] |
| 3281 | The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel] |
| 3277 | In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel] |
| 3274 | Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel] |
| 3273 | Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel] |
| 6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
| 3276 | A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel] |
| 1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
| 532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
| 1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
| 3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
| 1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |