150 ideas
| 7911 | Theory vanishes when one has obtained wisdom [Rahulabhadra] |
| 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] |
| 9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
| 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] |
| 9184 | We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson] |
| 6859 | Analytic philosophy has much higher standards of thinking than continental philosophy [Williamson] |
| 164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
| 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] |
| 21616 | Truth and falsity apply to suppositions as well as to assertions [Williamson] |
| 21623 | True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson] |
| 15134 | The truthmaker principle requires some specific named thing to make the difference [Williamson] |
| 15141 | Truthmaker is incompatible with modal semantics of varying domains [Williamson] |
| 15140 | The converse Barcan formula will not allow contingent truths to have truthmakers [Williamson] |
| 9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
| 639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 14626 | In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson] |
| 15131 | If metaphysical possibility is not a contingent matter, then S5 seems to suit it best [Williamson] |
| 15135 | If the domain of propositional quantification is constant, the Barcan formulas hold [Williamson] |
| 15130 | If a property is possible, there is something which can have it [Williamson] |
| 15139 | Converse Barcan: could something fail to meet a condition, if everything meets that condition? [Williamson] |
| 21602 | Many-valued logics don't solve vagueness; its presence at the meta-level is ignored [Williamson] |
| 6862 | Fuzzy logic uses a continuum of truth, but it implies contradictions [Williamson] |
| 6858 | Formal logic struck me as exactly the language I wanted to think in [Williamson] |
| 21611 | Formal semantics defines validity as truth preserved in every model [Williamson] |
| 21606 | 'Bivalence' is the meta-linguistic principle that 'A' in the object language is true or false [Williamson] |
| 21605 | Excluded Middle is 'A or not A' in the object language [Williamson] |
| 18492 | Not all quantification is either objectual or substitutional [Williamson] |
| 15136 | Substitutional quantification is metaphysical neutral, and equivalent to a disjunction of instances [Williamson] |
| 15138 | Not all quantification is objectual or substitutional [Williamson] |
| 21612 | Or-elimination is 'Argument by Cases'; it shows how to derive C from 'A or B' [Williamson] |
| 21599 | A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson] |
| 9183 | Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson] |
| 9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
| 15137 | If 'fact' is a noun, can we name the fact that dogs bark 'Mary'? [Williamson] |
| 21589 | When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson] |
| 21596 | Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson] |
| 21601 | A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson] |
| 21629 | Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson] |
| 9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
| 21591 | Vagueness is epistemic. Statements are true or false, but we often don't know which [Williamson] |
| 21619 | If a heap has a real boundary, omniscient speakers would agree where it is [Williamson] |
| 21620 | The epistemic view says that the essence of vagueness is ignorance [Williamson] |
| 21622 | If there is a true borderline of which we are ignorant, this drives a wedge between meaning and use [Williamson] |
| 9120 | Vagueness in a concept is its indiscriminability from other possible concepts [Williamson] |
| 6863 | Close to conceptual boundaries judgement is too unreliable to give knowledge [Williamson] |
| 21625 | The vagueness of 'heap' can remain even when the context is fixed [Williamson] |
| 21614 | The 'nihilist' view of vagueness says that 'heap' is not a legitimate concept [Williamson] |
| 21617 | We can say propositions are bivalent, but vague utterances don't express a proposition [Williamson] |
| 21618 | If the vague 'TW is thin' says nothing, what does 'TW is thin if his perfect twin is thin' say? [Williamson] |
| 21590 | Asking when someone is 'clearly' old is higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
| 21592 | Supervaluation keeps classical logic, but changes the truth in classical semantics [Williamson] |
| 21603 | You can't give a precise description of a language which is intrinsically vague [Williamson] |
| 21604 | Supervaluation assigns truth when all the facts are respected [Williamson] |
| 21607 | Supervaluation has excluded middle but not bivalence; 'A or not-A' is true, even when A is undecided [Williamson] |
| 21608 | Truth-functionality for compound statements fails in supervaluation [Williamson] |
| 21609 | Supervaluationism defines 'supertruth', but neglects it when defining 'valid' [Williamson] |
| 21610 | Supervaluation adds a 'definitely' operator to classical logic [Williamson] |
| 21613 | Supervaluationism cannot eliminate higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
| 1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 21633 | Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson] |
| 6861 | What sort of logic is needed for vague concepts, and what sort of concept of truth? [Williamson] |
| 9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
| 21630 | If fuzzy edges are fine, then why not fuzzy temporal, modal or mereological boundaries? [Williamson] |
| 21632 | A river is not just event; it needs actual and counterfactual boundaries [Williamson] |
| 14625 | Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson] |
| 14623 | Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson] |
| 14624 | Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson] |
| 14531 | Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
| 21621 | We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson] |
| 9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
| 16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
| 9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
| 15142 | Our ability to count objects across possibilities favours the Barcan formulas [Williamson] |
| 18925 | If talking donkeys are possible, something exists which could be a talking donkey [Williamson, by Cameron] |
| 21627 | We have inexact knowledge when we include margins of error [Williamson] |
| 4760 | Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson] |
| 19527 | We don't acquire evidence and then derive some knowledge, because evidence IS knowledge [Williamson] |
| 19512 | Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose] |
| 19528 | Knowledge is prior to believing, just as doing is prior to trying to do [Williamson] |
| 19529 | Belief explains justification, and knowledge explains belief, so knowledge explains justification [Williamson] |
| 19530 | A neutral state of experience, between error and knowledge, is not basic; the successful state is basic [Williamson] |
| 19531 | Internalism about mind is an obsolete view, and knowledge-first epistemology develops externalism [Williamson] |
| 19536 | Knowledge-first says your total evidence IS your knowledge [Williamson] |
| 19526 | Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances? [Williamson] |
| 9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
| 6860 | How can one discriminate yellow from red, but not the colours in between? [Williamson] |
| 9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
| 20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
| 21626 | Knowing you know (KK) is usually denied if the knowledge concept is missing, or not considered [Williamson] |
| 14628 | Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson] |
| 1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 21631 | To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson] |
| 23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
| 21600 | 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson] |
| 9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
| 21615 | References to the 'greatest prime number' have no reference, but are meaningful [Williamson] |
| 18038 | The 't' and 'f' of formal semantics has no philosophical interest, and may not refer to true and false [Williamson] |
| 19534 | How does inferentialism distinguish the patterns of inference that are essential to meaning? [Williamson] |
| 19535 | Internalist inferentialism has trouble explaining how meaning and reference relate [Williamson] |
| 19533 | Inferentialist semantics relies on internal inference relations, not on external references [Williamson] |
| 19532 | Truth-conditional referential semantics is externalist, referring to worldly items [Williamson] |
| 21624 | It is known that there is a cognitive loss in identifying propositions with possible worlds [Williamson] |
| 19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 5837 | Things are both good and fine by the same standard [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 15133 | A thing can't be the only necessary existent, because its singleton set would be as well [Williamson] |
| 338 | Socrates is accused of denying the gods, saying sun is stone and moon is earth [Socrates, by Plato] |