55 ideas
21852 | Nomads are the basis of history, and yet almost unknowable [Deleuze] |
21844 | The history of philosophy is an agent of power: how can you think if you haven't read the great names? [Deleuze] |
21849 | Thought should be thrown like a stone from a war-machine [Deleuze] |
21845 | Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state [Deleuze] |
16241 | The metaphysics of nature should focus on physics [Maudlin] |
16257 | Kant survives in seeing metaphysics as analysing our conceptual system, which is a priori [Maudlin] |
16276 | Wide metaphysical possibility may reduce metaphysics to analysis of fantasies [Maudlin] |
21839 | When I meet objections I just move on; they never contribute anything [Deleuze] |
21901 | 'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May] |
21841 | We must create new words, and treat them as normal, and as if designating real things. [Deleuze] |
16244 | If the universe is profligate, the Razor leads us astray [Maudlin] |
16255 | The Razor rightly prefers one cause of multiple events to coincidences of causes [Maudlin] |
21842 | Don't assess ideas for truth or justice; look for another idea, and establish a relationship with it [Deleuze] |
21850 | Dualisms can be undone from within, by tracing connections, and drawing them to a new path [Deleuze] |
21838 | Before we seek solutions, it is important to invent problems [Deleuze] |
21902 | 'Being' is univocal, but its subject matter is actually 'difference' [Deleuze] |
21908 | Ontology can be continual creation, not to know being, but to probe the unknowable [Deleuze] |
21899 | There is no being beyond becoming [Deleuze] |
21847 | Before Being there is politics [Deleuze] |
21903 | Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May] |
21904 | Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May] |
16243 | The Humean view is wrong; laws and direction of time are primitive, and atoms are decided by physics [Maudlin] |
16271 | Lewis says it supervenes on the Mosaic, but actually thinks the Mosaic is all there is [Maudlin] |
16273 | If the Humean Mosaic is ontological bedrock, there can be no explanation of its structure [Maudlin] |
16275 | The 'spinning disc' is just impossible, because there cannot be 'homogeneous matter' [Maudlin] |
16258 | To get an ontology from ontological commitment, just add that some theory is actually true [Maudlin] |
16259 | Naïve translation from natural to formal language can hide or multiply the ontology [Maudlin] |
21907 | We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories [Deleuze, by May] |
16253 | A property is fundamental if two objects can differ in only that respect [Maudlin] |
16263 | Fundamental physics seems to suggest there are no such things as properties [Maudlin] |
16260 | Existence of universals may just be decided by acceptance, or not, of second-order logic [Maudlin] |
16277 | Logically impossible is metaphysically impossible, but logically possible is not metaphysically possible [Maudlin] |
16249 | A counterfactual antecedent commands the redescription of a selected moment [Maudlin] |
20921 | How can we state relativism of sweet and sour, if they have no determinate nature? [Theophrastus] |
16254 | Induction leaps into the unknown, but usually lands safely [Maudlin] |
16245 | Laws should help explain the things they govern, or that manifest them [Maudlin] |
21840 | A meeting of man and animal can be deterritorialization (like a wasp with an orchid) [Deleuze] |
21843 | People consist of many undetermined lines, some rigid, some supple, some 'lines of flight' [Deleuze] |
21853 | We are currently extending capitalism to the whole of society [Deleuze] |
21848 | Some lines (of flight) are becomings which escape the system [Deleuze] |
21851 | The State requires self-preservation, but the war-machine desires destruction [Deleuze] |
5990 | Theophrastus doubted whether nature could be explained teleologically [Theophrastus, by Gottschalk] |
16248 | Evaluating counterfactuals involves context and interests [Maudlin] |
16250 | We don't pick a similar world from many - we construct one possibility from the description [Maudlin] |
16268 | The counterfactual is ruined if some other cause steps in when the antecedent fails [Maudlin] |
16267 | If we know the cause of an event, we seem to assent to the counterfactual [Maudlin] |
16269 | If the effect hadn't occurred the cause wouldn't have happened, so counterfactuals are two-way [Maudlin] |
16247 | Laws are primitive, so two indiscernible worlds could have the same laws [Maudlin] |
16272 | Fundamental laws say how nature will, or might, evolve from some initial state [Maudlin] |
16242 | Laws of nature are ontological bedrock, and beyond analysis [Maudlin] |
16251 | 'Humans with prime house numbers are mortal' is not a law, because not a natural kind [Maudlin] |
16270 | If laws are just regularities, then there have to be laws [Maudlin] |
16264 | I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin] |
16265 | If time passes, presumably it passes at one second per second [Maudlin] |
16266 | There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin] |