193 ideas
14519 | It is a great good to show reverence for a wise man [Epicurus] |
20866 | Wise men participate in politics, especially if it shows moral progress [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
20854 | Wise men are never astonished at things which other people take to be wonders [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20815 | No wise man has yet been discovered [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
22733 | Epicurus accepted God in his popular works, but not in his writings on nature [Epicurus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
14518 | In the study of philosophy, pleasure and knowledge arrive simultaneously [Epicurus] |
14052 | Begin philosophy when you are young, and keep going when you are old [Epicurus] |
13291 | Slavery to philosophy brings true freedom [Epicurus] |
20806 | Stoic physics concerns cosmos, elements and causes (with six detailed divisions) [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20839 | Ethics studies impulse, good, passion, virtue, goals, value, action, appropriateness, encouragement [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
22758 | Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion [Epicurus] |
20867 | True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
14523 | We should come to philosophy free from any taint of culture [Epicurus] |
22240 | The aim of medicine is removal of sickness, and philosophy similarly removes our affections [Epicurus] |
1484 | We should say nothing of the whole if our contact is with the parts [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
21675 | Some facts are indispensable for an effect, and others actually necessitate the effect [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
14027 | If we are to use words in enquiry, we need their main, unambiguous and uncontested meanings [Epicurus] |
21810 | The Stoics distinguished spoken logos from logos within the mind [Stoic school, by Plotinus] |
20775 | Stoics study canons, criteria and definitions, in order to find the truth [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
21393 | Stoics believed that rational capacity in man (logos) is embodied in the universe [Stoic school, by Long] |
2670 | Epicurus despises and laughs at the whole of dialectic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
20776 | Dialectics is mastery of question and answer form [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20849 | Falsehoods corrupt a mind, producing passions and instability [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20823 | The truth bearers are said to be the signified, or the signifier, or the meaning of the signifier [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
14040 | Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus] |
20778 | Stoics like syllogisms, for showing what is demonstrative, which corrects opinions [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
21668 | Epicurus rejected excluded middle, because accepting it for events is fatalistic [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
21400 | Stoics avoided universals by paraphrasing 'Man is...' as 'If something is a man, then it is...' [Stoic school, by Long] |
20788 | The contradictory of a contradictory is an affirmation [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
21676 | Epicureans say disjunctions can be true whiile the disjuncts are not true [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
14028 | Nothing comes to be from what doesn't exist [Epicurus] |
14029 | If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus] |
14030 | The totality is complete, so there is no room for it to change, and nothing extraneous to change it [Epicurus] |
14048 | Astronomical movements are blessed, but they don't need the help of the gods [Epicurus] |
21594 | Stoics applied bivalence to sorites situations, so everyone is either vicious or wholly virtuous [Stoic school, by Williamson] |
20824 | Stoics have four primary categories: substrates, qualities, dispositions, relative dispositions [Stoic school, by Simplicius] |
14044 | The perceived accidental properties of bodies cannot be conceived of as independent natures [Epicurus] |
14045 | Accidental properties give a body its nature, but are not themselves bodies or parts of bodies [Epicurus] |
20817 | Platonic Forms are just our thoughts [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch] |
14524 | Bodies are combinations of shape, size, resistance and weight [Epicurus] |
14046 | A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus] |
6037 | Stoics say matter has qualities, and substance underlies it, with no form or qualities [Stoic school, by Chalcidius] |
20826 | How is separateness possible, if separated things are always said to be united? [Alexander on Stoic school] |
20825 | How is divisibility possible, if stoics say things remain united when they are divided? [Alexander on Stoic school] |
20872 | Stoics say wholes are more than parts, but entirely consist of parts [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
14047 | Bodies have impermanent properties, and permanent ones which define its conceived nature [Epicurus] |
20790 | A proposition is possible if it is true when nothing stops it being true [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20789 | Conditionals are false if the falsehood of the conclusion does not conflict with the antecedent [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
14039 | Above and below us will never appear to be the same, because it is inconceivable [Epicurus] |
20783 | Knowledge is a secure grasp of presentations which cannot be reversed by argument [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20868 | Two sorts of opinion: either poorly grounded belief, or weak belief [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
14050 | We aim to dissolve our fears, by understanding their causes [Epicurus] |
20784 | There are non-sensible presentations, which come to us through the intellect [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
1823 | We can't seek for things if we have no idea of them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20803 | Stoics say we are born like a blank sheet of paper; the first concepts on it are sensations [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch] |
6025 | At birth the soul is a blank sheet ready to be written on [Stoic school, by Aetius] |
1824 | To name something, you must already have an idea of what it is [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
14037 | Atoms only have shape, weight and size, and the properties which accompany shape [Epicurus] |
5949 | Epicurus says colours are relative to the eye, not intrinsic to bodies [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
20781 | Non-graspable presentations are from what doesn't exist, or are not clear and distinct [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
1821 | Sensations cannot be judged, because similar sensations have equal value, and different ones have nothing in common [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20792 | Stoic perception is a presentation to which one voluntarily assents [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
20805 | All our concepts come from experience, directly, or by expansion, reduction or compounding [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
1820 | The criteria of truth are senses, preconceptions and passions [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
1822 | Reason can't judge senses, as it is based on them [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20782 | Dialectic is a virtue which contains other virtues [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
1772 | For Stoics knowledge is an assertion which never deviates from the truth [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
4549 | Epicurus denied knowledge in order to retain morality or hedonism as the highest values [Nietzsche on Epicurus] |
2668 | Epicurus says if one of a man's senses ever lies, none of his senses should ever be believed [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
6010 | Illusions are not false perceptions, as we accurately perceive the pattern of atoms [Epicurus, by Modrak] |
1482 | If two people disagree over taste, who is right? [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
1483 | Bath water is too hot for some, too cold for others [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
1487 | When entering a dark room it is colourless, but colour gradually appears [Epicurus] |
20779 | Demonstration derives what is less clear from what is clear [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
21386 | We should accept as explanations all the plausible ways in which something could come about [Epicurus] |
23251 | The Stoics think that soul in the narrow sense is nothing but reason [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
20809 | Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
14526 | The rational soul is in the chest, and the non-rational soul is spread through the body [Epicurus] |
14041 | The soul is fine parts distributed through the body, resembling hot breath [Epicurus] |
6035 | Soul is made of four stuffs, giving warmth, rest, motion and perception [Epicurus, by Aetius] |
23321 | Division of the soul divides a person, reducing responsibility for the nonrational part [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
23267 | Stoics say the soul is a mixture of air and fire [Stoic school, by Galen] |
20785 | Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
7502 | For Stoics the true self is defined by what I can be master of [Stoic school, by Foucault] |
6018 | Epicurus was the first to see the free will problem, and he was a libertarian [Epicurus, by Long/Sedley] |
20922 | Epicurus showed that the swerve can give free motion in the atoms [Epicurus, by Diogenes of Oen.] |
23327 | Stoics expanded the idea of compulsion, and contracted what counts as one's own actions [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
14516 | There is no necessity to live with necessity [Epicurus] |
7672 | The free will problem was invented by the Stoics [Stoic school, by Berlin] |
14521 | If everything is by necessity, then even denials of necessity are by necessity [Epicurus] |
14062 | Sooner follow mythology, than accept the 'fate' of natural philosophers [Epicurus] |
23315 | The nearest to ancient determinism is Stoic fate, but that is controlled by a sympathetic God [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
1837 | We should not refer things to irresponsible necessity, but either to fortune or to our own will [Epicurus] |
14042 | The soul cannot be incorporeal, because then it could neither act nor be acted upon [Epicurus] |
1909 | How can pleasure or judgement occur in a heap of atoms? [Sext.Empiricus on Epicurus] |
4014 | Stoics classify passions according to the opinion of good and bad which they imply [Stoic school, by Taylor,C] |
23988 | There are four basic emotions: pleasure or delight, distress, appetite, and fear [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
6594 | Stoics said that correct judgement needs an invincible criterion of truth [Stoic school, by Fogelin] |
20804 | Concepts are intellectual phantasms [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch] |
20786 | Predicates are incomplete 'lekta' [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
23322 | Humans have rational impressions, which are conceptual, and are true or false [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
20777 | Rhetoric has three types, four modes, and four sections [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
23323 | Earlier Stoics speak of assent, but not of choice, let alone of a will [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
1836 | Prudence is more valuable than philosophy, because it avoids confusions of the soul [Epicurus] |
14061 | Our own choices are autonomous, and the basis for praise and blame [Epicurus] |
23305 | Stoics said responsibility depends on rationality [Stoic school, by Sorabji] |
1907 | Stoics use 'kalon' (beautiful) as a synonym for 'agathon' (good) [Bury on Stoic school] |
7814 | It was Epicurus who made the question of the will's freedom central to ethics [Epicurus, by Grayling] |
22757 | Stoics say that folly alone is evil [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
20846 | Prime values apply to the life in agreement; useful values apply to the natural life [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20847 | The appraiser's value is what is set by someone experienced in the facts [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20870 | The goal is to live consistently with the constitution of a human being [Stoic school, by Clement] |
22238 | Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Stoic school, by Pormann] |
20861 | The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
14054 | Fearing death is absurd, because we are not present when it occurs [Epicurus] |
14053 | It is absurd to fear the pain of death when you are not even facing it [Epicurus] |
14055 | The wisdom that produces a good life also produces a good death [Epicurus] |
3553 | Stoic morality says that one's own happiness will lead to impartiality [Stoic school, by Annas] |
20851 | Virtuous men do not feel sexual desire, which merely focuses on physical beauty [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
7499 | Stoicism was an elitist option to lead a beautiful life [Stoic school, by Foucault] |
3562 | Fine things are worthless if they give no pleasure [Epicurus] |
20843 | Final goods: confidence, prudence, freedom, enjoyment and no pain, good spirits, virtue [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
14057 | All pleasures are good, but it is not always right to choose them [Epicurus] |
14058 | Pleasure is the goal, but as lack of pain and calm mind, not as depraved or greedy pleasure [Epicurus] |
1840 | Pleasure is the chief good because it is the most natural, especially for animals [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
1833 | Pleasure is the first good in life [Epicurus] |
14063 | Sooner a good decision going wrong, than a bad one turning out for the good [Epicurus] |
22753 | Happiness for the Stoics was an equable flow of life [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
14522 | What happens to me if I obtain all my desires, and what if I fail? [Epicurus] |
14059 | The best life is not sensuality, but rational choice and healthy opinion [Epicurus] |
20865 | Happiness is the end and goal, achieved by living virtuously, in agreement, and according to nature [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
1835 | True pleasure is not debauchery, but freedom from physical and mental pain [Epicurus] |
1839 | Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
1842 | Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus] |
3557 | The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas] |
14056 | We only need pleasure when we have the pain of desire [Epicurus] |
20840 | Stoics say pleasure is at most a byproduct of finding what is suitable for us [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
3563 | Pleasure and virtue entail one another [Epicurus] |
20852 | Rapture is a breakdown of virtue [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
1845 | Justice has no independent existence, but arises entirely from keeping contracts [Epicurus] |
3560 | Justice is merely a contract about not harming or being harmed [Epicurus] |
6895 | If humans are citizens of the world (not just a state) then virtue is all good human habits [Stoic school, by Mautner] |
14060 | Prudence is the greatest good, and more valuable than philosophy, because it produces virtue [Epicurus] |
1841 | We choose virtue because of pleasure, not for its own sake [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
14517 | We value our own character, whatever it is, and we should respect the characters of others [Epicurus] |
20848 | An appropriate action is one that can be defended, perhaps by its consistency. [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
14513 | Justice is a pledge of mutual protection [Epicurus] |
20844 | Honour is just, courageous, orderly or knowledgeable. It is praiseworthy, or functions well [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
4012 | The Stoics rejected entirely the high value that had been placed on contemplation [Stoic school, by Taylor,C] |
1829 | A wise man would be happy even under torture [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5073 | Stoics do not despise external goods, but subject them to reason, and not to desire [Taylor,R on Stoic school] |
20862 | Crafts like music and letters are virtuous conditions, and they accord with virtue [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
1843 | Friendship is by far the most important ingredient of a complete and happy life [Epicurus] |
5072 | For Stoics, obligations are determined by social role [Taylor,R on Stoic school] |
21396 | Man is distinguished by knowing conditional truths, because impressions are connected [Stoic school, by Long] |
14515 | A law is not just if it is not useful in mutual associations [Epicurus] |
1781 | Stoics favour a mixture of democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
21384 | The Stoics saw the whole world as a city [Stoic school, by Long] |
20859 | The best government blends democracy, monarchy and aristocracy [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
3561 | Stoics originated the concept of natural law, as agreed correct reasoning [Stoic school, by Annas] |
3046 | Stoics say a wise man will commit suicide if he has a good enough reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
20858 | Suicide is reasonable, for one's country or friends, or because of very bad health [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
1831 | Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius] |
14520 | It is small-minded to find many good reasons for suicide [Epicurus] |
3556 | Stoic 'nature' is deterministic, physical and teleological [Stoic school, by Annas] |
12044 | Only Epicurus denied purpose in nature, for the whole world, or for its parts [Epicurus, by Annas] |
14032 | Totality has no edge; an edge implies a contrast beyond the edge, and there can't be one [Epicurus] |
14033 | Bodies are unlimited as well as void, since the two necessarily go together [Epicurus] |
22743 | Unlike Epicurus, Stoics distinguish the Whole from the All, with the latter including the void [Stoic school, by Sext.Empiricus] |
14034 | There exists an infinity of each shape of atom, but the number of shapes is beyond our knowledge [Epicurus] |
14035 | Atoms just have shape, size and weight; colour results from their arrangement [Epicurus] |
14038 | There cannot be unlimited division, because it would reduce things to non-existence [Epicurus] |
20907 | Democritus says atoms have size and shape, and Epicurus added weight [Epicurus, by Ps-Plutarch] |
21669 | Atoms don't swerve by being struck, because they move in parallel, so the swerve is uncaused [Cicero on Epicurus] |
21680 | What causes atomic swerves? Do they draw lots? What decides the size or number of swerves? [Cicero on Epicurus] |
14049 | We aim to know the natures which are observed in natural phenomena [Epicurus] |
13296 | The cosmos has two elements - passive matter, and active cause (or reason) which shapes it [Stoic school, by Seneca] |
14043 | The void cannot interact, but just gives the possibility of motion [Epicurus] |
14031 | Space must exist, since movement is obvious, and there must be somewhere to move in [Epicurus] |
14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
14051 | A cosmos is a collection of stars and an earth, with some sort of boundary, movement and shape [Epicurus] |
20827 | The cosmos is regularly consumed and reorganised by the primary fire [Stoic school, by Aristocles] |
14036 | There are endless cosmoi, some like and some unlike this one [Epicurus] |
7815 | Early Stoics called the logos 'god', meaning not a being, but the principle of the universe [Stoic school] |
2637 | For Epicureans gods are made of atoms, and are not eternal [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
2633 | Epicurus saw that gods must exist, because nature has imprinted them on human minds [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
6038 | Stoics say god is matter, or an inseparable quality of it, or is the power within it [Stoic school, by Chalcidius] |
1828 | God does not intervene in heavenly movements, but is beyond all action and perfectly happy [Epicurus] |
2639 | Some say Epicurus only pretended to believe in the gods, so as not to offend Athenians [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
14527 | If god answered prayers we would be destroyed, because we pray for others to suffer [Epicurus] |
20829 | Virtuous souls endure till the end, foolish souls for a short time, animal souls not at all [Stoic school, by Eusebius] |
6039 | Stoics say virtuous souls last till everything ends in fire, but foolish ones fade away [Stoic school, by ] |