28 ideas
20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
8780 | Attributes are functions, not objects; this distinguishes 'square of 2' from 'double of 2' [Geach] |
11910 | Being 'the same' is meaningless, unless we specify 'the same X' [Geach] |
7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
8775 | A big flea is a small animal, so 'big' and 'small' cannot be acquired by abstraction [Geach] |
8776 | We cannot learn relations by abstraction, because their converse must be learned too [Geach] |
7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
2567 | You can't define real mental states in terms of behaviour that never happens [Geach] |
2568 | Beliefs aren't tied to particular behaviours [Geach] |
23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
8769 | If someone has aphasia but can still play chess, they clearly have concepts [Geach] |
8770 | 'Abstractionism' is acquiring a concept by picking out one experience amongst a group [Geach] |
8771 | 'Or' and 'not' are not to be found in the sensible world, or even in the world of inner experience [Geach] |
8772 | We can't acquire number-concepts by extracting the number from the things being counted [Geach] |
8773 | Abstractionists can't explain counting, because it must precede experience of objects [Geach] |
8774 | The numbers don't exist in nature, so they cannot have been abstracted from there into our languages [Geach] |
8778 | Blind people can use colour words like 'red' perfectly intelligently [Geach] |
8777 | If 'black' and 'cat' can be used in the absence of such objects, how can such usage be abstracted? [Geach] |
8779 | We can form two different abstract concepts that apply to a single unified experience [Geach] |
3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |