52 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 20388 | 'Necessary' conditions are requirements, and 'sufficient' conditions are guarantees [Davies,S] |
| 20389 | A definition of a thing gives all the requirements which add up to a guarantee of it [Davies,S] |
| 20391 | Feminists warn that ideologies use timeless objective definitions as a tool of repression [Davies,S] |
| 9240 | Love creates a necessity concerning what to care about [Frankfurt] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 9264 | Persons are distinguished by a capacity for second-order desires [Frankfurt] |
| 9266 | A person essentially has second-order volitions, and not just second-order desires [Frankfurt] |
| 9267 | Free will is the capacity to choose what sort of will you have [Frankfurt] |
| 9265 | The will is the effective desire which actually leads to an action [Frankfurt] |
| 20015 | Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 20387 | Aesthetic experience involves perception, but also imagination and understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20385 | The faculty of 'taste' was posited to explain why only some people had aesthetic appreciation [Davies,S] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20384 | The idea that art forms are linked into a single concept began in the 1740s [Davies,S] |
| 20390 | Defining art as representation or expression or form were all undermined by the avant-garde [Davies,S] |
| 20392 | 'Aesthetic functionalism' says art is what is intended to create aesthetic experiences [Davies,S] |
| 20405 | Music may be expressive by being 'associated' with other emotional words or events [Davies,S] |
| 20403 | It seems unlikely that sad music expresses a composer's sadness; it takes ages to write [Davies,S] |
| 20393 | The 'institutional' theory says art is just something appropriately placed in the 'artworld' [Davies,S] |
| 20402 | Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!) [Davies,S] |
| 20395 | The title of a painting can be vital, and the artist decrees who the portrait represents [Davies,S] |
| 20396 | We must know what the work is meant to be, to evaluate the artist's achievement [Davies,S] |
| 20399 | Intentionalism says either meaning just is intention, or ('moderate') meaning is successful intention [Davies,S] |
| 20401 | The meaning is given by the audience's best guess at the author's intentions [Davies,S] |
| 20397 | If we could perfectly clone the Mona Lisa, the original would still be special [Davies,S] |
| 20398 | Art that is multiply instanced may require at least one instance [Davies,S] |
| 20404 | Music isn't just sad because it makes the listener feel sad [Davies,S] |
| 22705 | If the depiction of evil is glorified, that is an artistic flaw [Davies,S] |
| 22707 | It is an artistic defect if excessive moral outrage distorts the story, and narrows our sympathies [Davies,S] |
| 22706 | A work which seeks approval for immorality, but alienates the audience, is a failure [Davies,S] |
| 22704 | Immorality may or may not be an artistic defect [Davies,S] |
| 9228 | Ranking order of desires reveals nothing, because none of them may be considered important [Frankfurt] |
| 9270 | A 'wanton' is not a person, because they lack second-order volitions [Frankfurt] |
| 9269 | A person may be morally responsible without free will [Frankfurt] |
| 9238 | Morality isn't based on reason; moral indignation is quite unlike disapproval of irrationality [Frankfurt] |
| 9232 | It is by caring about things that we infuse the world with importance [Frankfurt] |
| 9234 | If you don't care about at least one thing, you can't find reasons to care about anything [Frankfurt] |
| 9229 | What is worthwhile for its own sake alone may be worth very little [Frankfurt] |
| 9233 | Our criteria for evaluating how to live offer an answer to the problem [Frankfurt] |
| 9235 | Rather than loving things because we value them, I think we value things because we love them [Frankfurt] |
| 9236 | Love can be cool, and it may not involve liking its object [Frankfurt] |
| 9237 | The paradigm case of pure love is not romantic, but that between parents and infants [Frankfurt] |
| 9239 | I value my children for their sake, but I also value my love for them for its own sake [Frankfurt] |
| 9227 | We might not choose a very moral life, if the character or constitution was deficient [Frankfurt] |
| 9230 | People want to fulfill their desires, but also for their desires to be sustained [Frankfurt] |
| 9241 | Loving oneself is not a failing, but is essential to a successful life [Frankfurt] |
| 9300 | Boredom is serious, not just uncomfortable; it threatens our psychic survival [Frankfurt] |
| 9231 | Freedom needs autonomy (rather than causal independence) - embracing our own desires and choices [Frankfurt] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |