Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Thales, Karen Armstrong and Michael Smith

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31 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
1597 Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
23728 Analysis aims to express the full set of platitudes surrounding a given concept [Smith,M]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 1. Definitions
23744 Defining a set of things by paradigms doesn't pin them down enough [Smith,M]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
3013 Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
23743 Capturing all the common sense facts about rationality is almost impossible [Smith,M]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 1. Acting on Desires
23739 Goals need desires, and so only desires can motivate us [Smith,M]
23724 A pure desire could be criticised if it were based on a false belief [Smith,M]
23736 A person can have a desire without feeling it [Smith,M]
23723 In the Humean account, desires are not true/false, or subject to any rational criticism [Smith,M]
23735 Subjects may be fallible about the desires which explain their actions [Smith,M]
23738 Humeans (unlike their opponents) say that desires and judgements can separate [Smith,M]
23742 If first- and second-order desires conflict, harmony does not require the second-order to win [Smith,M]
23746 Objective reasons to act might be the systematic desires of a fully rational person [Smith,M]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason
23733 Motivating reasons are psychological, while normative reasons are external [Smith,M]
23740 Humeans take maximising desire satisfaction as the normative reasons for actions [Smith,M]
23745 We cannot expect even fully rational people to converge on having the same desires for action [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / h. Against ethics
23731 'Externalists' say moral judgements are not reasons, and maybe not even motives [Smith,M]
23732 A person could make a moral judgement without being in any way motivated by it [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
23729 Moral internalism says a judgement of rightness is thereby motivating [Smith,M]
23730 'Rationalism' says the rightness of an action is a reason to perform it [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
23727 Expressivists count attitudes as 'moral' if they concern features of things, rather than their mere existence [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
23741 Is valuing something a matter of believing or a matter of desiring? [Smith,M]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
1494 Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
1713 Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
7602 In the Bible God changes his mind (repenting of creating humanity, in the Flood) [Armstrong,K]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 1. Monotheism
7605 Monotheism introduced intolerance into religious thinking [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
1742 Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
7599 Around 800 BCE teachers superseded gods in India [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 2. Judaism
7597 There is virtually no sign of monotheism in the Pentateuch [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity
7606 The idea that Jesus was God was only settled in the fourth century [Armstrong,K]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / e. Fideism
7596 Faith is not just belief in propositions, but also putting trust in them [Armstrong,K]