148 ideas
19441 | All philosophies presuppose their historical moment, and arise from it [Feuerbach] |
13773 | For the truth you need Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, not his one-drachma course [Socrates] |
343 | The unexamined life is not worth living for men [Socrates] |
7421 | A philosopher is one who cares about what other people care about [Socrates, by Foucault] |
19456 | Philosophy is distinguished from other sciences by its complete lack of presuppositions [Feuerbach] |
19442 | I don't study Plato for his own sake; the primary aim is always understanding [Feuerbach] |
6928 | Only that which can be an object of religion is an object of philosophy [Feuerbach] |
1649 | Socrates opened philosophy to all, but Plato confined moral enquiry to a tiny elite [Vlastos on Socrates] |
5842 | Philosophical discussion involves dividing subject-matter into categories [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
648 | Socrates began the quest for something universal with his definitions, but he didn't make them separate [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
6918 | Philosophy should not focus on names, but on the determined nature of things [Feuerbach] |
13407 | All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau] |
6904 | Modern philosophy begins with Descartes' abstraction from sensation and matter [Feuerbach] |
6931 | Empiricism is right about ideas, but forgets man himself as one of our objects [Feuerbach] |
6933 | The laws of reality are also the laws of thought [Feuerbach] |
164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
19444 | Each proposition has an antithesis, and truth exists as its refutation [Feuerbach] |
19445 | A dialectician has to be his own opponent [Feuerbach] |
1647 | In Socratic dialogue you must say what you believe, so unasserted premises are not debated [Vlastos on Socrates] |
115 | Socrates was pleased if his mistakes were proved wrong [Socrates] |
22099 | The method of Socrates shows the student is discovering the truth within himself [Socrates, by Carlisle] |
5844 | Socrates always proceeded in argument by general agreement at each stage [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
19443 | Truth forges an impersonal unity between people [Feuerbach] |
639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
6919 | Absolute thought remains in another world from being [Feuerbach] |
19457 | Being is what is undetermined, and hence indistinguishable [Feuerbach] |
6920 | Being posits essence, and my essence is my being [Feuerbach] |
6921 | Particularity belongs to being, whereas generality belongs to thought [Feuerbach] |
6926 | The only true being is of the senses, perception, feeling and love [Feuerbach] |
3509 | Externalism may be the key idea in philosophical naturalism [Papineau] |
19446 | To our consciousness it is language which looks unreal [Feuerbach] |
13409 | Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau] |
1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
12583 | Belief truth-conditions are normal circumstances where the belief is supposed to occur [Papineau] |
6908 | Consciousness is absolute reality, and everything exists through consciousness [Feuerbach] |
19447 | The Absolute is the 'and' which unites 'spirit and nature' [Feuerbach] |
6932 | Ideas arise through communication, and reason is reached through community [Feuerbach] |
13406 | A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau] |
6935 | In man the lowest senses of smell and taste elevate themselves to intellectual acts [Feuerbach] |
7871 | Perceptual concepts can't just refer to what causes classification [Papineau] |
13408 | Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau] |
7852 | The only serious mind-brain theories now are identity, token identity, realization and supervenience [Papineau] |
7864 | Maybe mind and body do overdetermine acts, but are linked (for some reason) [Papineau] |
7873 | Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau] |
7874 | Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau] |
7882 | Researching phenomenal consciousness is peculiar, because the concepts involved are peculiar [Papineau] |
7854 | Whether octopuses feel pain is unclear, because our phenomenal concepts are too vague [Papineau] |
7889 | Our concept of consciousness is crude, and lacks theoretical articulation [Papineau] |
7891 | We can’t decide what 'conscious' means, so it is undecidable whether cats are conscious [Papineau] |
7890 | Maybe a creature is conscious if its mental states represent things in a distinct way [Papineau] |
7885 | The 'actualist' HOT theory says consciousness comes from actual higher judgements of mental states [Papineau] |
7886 | Actualist HOT theories imply that a non-conscious mental event could become conscious when remembered [Papineau] |
7887 | States are conscious if they could be the subject of higher-order mental judgements [Papineau] |
7888 | Higher-order judgements may be possible where the subject denies having been conscious [Papineau] |
1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
7860 | The epiphenomenal relation of mind and brain is a 'causal dangler', unlike anything else [Papineau] |
7862 | Maybe minds do not cause actions, but do cause us to report our decisions [Papineau] |
3513 | How does a dualist mind represent, exist outside space, and be transparent to itself? [Papineau] |
3514 | Functionalism needs causation and intentionality to explain actions [Papineau] |
7870 | Role concepts either name the realising property, or the higher property constituting the role [Papineau] |
7858 | If causes are basic particulars, this doesn't make conscious and physical properties identical [Papineau] |
3510 | Epiphenomenalism is supervenience without physicalism [Papineau] |
3511 | Supervenience requires all mental events to have physical effects [Papineau] |
7865 | Supervenience can be replaced by identifying mind with higher-order or disjunctional properties [Papineau] |
3515 | Knowing what it is like to be something only involves being (physically) that thing [Papineau] |
7892 | The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau] |
7879 | Mind-brain reduction is less explanatory, because phenomenal concepts lack causal roles [Papineau] |
20971 | Weak reduction of mind is to physical causes; strong reduction is also to physical laws [Papineau] |
7856 | It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau] |
7881 | Accept ontological monism, but conceptual dualism; we think in a different way about phenomenal thought [Papineau] |
3512 | If a mental state is multiply realisable, why does it lead to similar behaviour? [Papineau] |
7866 | Mary acquires new concepts; she previously thought about the same property using material concepts [Papineau] |
7850 | Thinking about a thing doesn't require activating it [Papineau] |
7851 | Consciousness affects bodily movement, so thoughts must be material states [Papineau] |
19451 | When absorbed in deep reflection, is your reason in control, or is it you? [Feuerbach] |
23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
16369 | There is a single file per object, memorised, reactivated, consolidated and expanded [Papineau, by Recanati] |
7884 | Most reductive accounts of representation imply broad content [Papineau] |
7863 | If content hinges on matters outside of you, how can it causally influence your actions? [Papineau] |
6925 | The new philosophy thinks of the concrete in a concrete (not a abstract) manner [Feuerbach] |
7883 | Verificationists tend to infer indefinite answers from undecidable questions [Papineau] |
13410 | Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau] |
7872 | Teleosemantics equates meaning with the item the concept is intended to track [Papineau] |
7869 | Truth conditions in possible worlds can't handle statements about impossibilities [Papineau] |
7868 | Thought content is possible worlds that make the thought true; if that includes the actual world, it's true [Papineau] |
3516 | The Private Language argument only means people may misjudge their experiences [Papineau] |
195 | No one willingly commits an evil or base act [Socrates] |
1653 | Socrates did not accept the tripartite soul (which permits akrasia) [Vlastos on Socrates] |
5843 | People do what they think they should do, and only ever do what they think they should do [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
5253 | Socrates was shocked by the idea of akrasia, but observation shows that it happens [Aristotle on Socrates] |
199 | The common belief is that people can know the best without acting on it [Socrates] |
5839 | For Socrates, wisdom and prudence were the same thing [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
5867 | For Socrates, virtues are forms of knowledge, so knowing justice produces justice [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
5069 | Socrates was the first to base ethics upon reason, and use reason to explain it [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
5836 | All human virtues are increased by study and practice [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
5840 | The wise perform good actions, and people fail to be good without wisdom [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
6924 | Plotinus was ashamed to have a body [Feuerbach] |
5070 | Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
344 | If death is like a night of dreamless sleep, such nights are very pleasant [Socrates] |
339 | Men fear death as a great evil when it may be a great blessing [Socrates] |
6927 | If you love nothing, it doesn't matter whether something exists or not [Feuerbach] |
5837 | Things are both good and fine by the same standard [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
19450 | Reason, love and will are the highest perfections and essence of man - the purpose of his life [Feuerbach] |
3017 | The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance [Socrates, by Diog. Laertius] |
1646 | Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos] |
2 | We should not even harm someone who harms us [Socrates] |
1663 | By 'areté' Socrates means just what we mean by moral virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
345 | A good man cannot be harmed, either in life or in death [Socrates] |
4323 | Socrates is torn between intellectual virtue, which is united and teachable, and natural virtue, which isn't [PG on Socrates] |
8003 | Socrates agrees that virtue is teachable, but then denies that there are teachers [Socrates, by MacIntyre] |
126 | We should ask what sort of people we want to be [Socrates] |
19458 | Egoism is the only evil, love the only good; genuine love produces all the other virtues [Feuerbach] |
4111 | Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement [Socrates, by Williams,B] |
7808 | Socrates made the civic values of justice and friendship paramount [Socrates, by Grayling] |
346 | One ought not to return a wrong or injury to any person, whatever the provocation [Socrates] |
23907 | Courage is scientific knowledge [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
341 | Wealth is good if it is accompanied by virtue [Socrates] |
7585 | Socrates emphasises that the knower is an existing individual, with existence his main task [Socrates, by Kierkegaard] |
6934 | Man is not a particular being, like animals, but a universal being [Feuerbach] |
6936 | The essence of man is in community, but with distinct individuals [Feuerbach] |
5841 | Obedience to the law gives the best life, and success in war [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
347 | Will I stand up against the law, simply because I have been unjustly judged? [Socrates] |
1661 | Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates] |
5846 | A lover using force is a villain, but a seducer is much worse, because he corrupts character [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
7853 | Causation is based on either events, or facts, or states of affairs [Papineau] |
7857 | Causes are instantiations of properties by particulars, or they are themselves basic particulars [Papineau] |
20976 | The completeness of physics cannot be proved [Papineau] |
20970 | Determinism is possible without a complete physics, if mental forces play a role [Papineau] |
20974 | Modern biological research, especially into the cell, has revealed no special new natural forces [Papineau] |
20975 | Quantum 'wave collapses' seem to violate conservation of energy [Papineau] |
19448 | Consciousness is said to distinguish man from animals - consciousness of his own species [Feuerbach] |
19454 | A God needs justice, kindness and wisdom, but those concepts don't depend on the concept of God [Feuerbach] |
1657 | Socrates holds that right reason entails virtue, and this must also apply to the gods [Vlastos on Socrates] |
1662 | A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
6913 | God's existence cannot be separated from essence and concept, which can only be thought as existing [Feuerbach] |
19452 | The nature of God is an expression of human nature [Feuerbach] |
6903 | If God is only an object for man, then only the essence of man is revealed in God [Feuerbach] |
6923 | God is what man would like to be [Feuerbach] |
6911 | God is for us a mere empty idea, which we fill with our own ego and essence [Feuerbach] |
338 | Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato] |
19453 | If love, goodness and personality are human, the God who is their source is anthropomorphic [Feuerbach] |
6902 | Catholicism concerns God in himself, Protestantism what God is for man [Feuerbach] |
19449 | Religion is the consciousness of the infinite [Feuerbach] |
6905 | Absolute idealism is the realized divine mind of Leibnizian theism [Feuerbach] |
19455 | Today's atheism will tomorrow become a religion [Feuerbach] |