62 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
23125 | Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik] |
23126 | Conservatives often want peace, prosperity and tolerance, but not social fairness [Gopnik] |
23132 | Conservatives believe obedience and rank are essential to social order [Gopnik] |
23142 | People are fallible, so liberalism tries to distribute power [Gopnik] |
23143 | Liberals have tried very hard to build a conscience into their institutions [Gopnik] |
23128 | The opposite of liberalism is dogmatism [Gopnik] |
23141 | Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups [Gopnik] |
23124 | Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik] |
23127 | Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik] |
23129 | Right-wingers attack liberal faith in reason, left-wingers attack its faith in reform [Gopnik] |
23133 | Cosmopolitan liberals lack national loyalty, and welcome excessive immigration [Gopnik] |
23138 | Modern left-wingers criticise liberalism's control of culture [Gopnik] |
23139 | Liberalism's attempt to be neutral and colour-blind erases cultural identities [Gopnik] |
23135 | Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik] |
23140 | Environmental disasters result not from capitalism, but from a general drive for growth [Gopnik] |
23130 | Popular imperialism gives the poor the belief that their acts have world historical meaning [Gopnik] |
23131 | Patriots love their place, but nationalists have a paranoid ethnic hostility [Gopnik] |
23136 | Liberal free speech is actually paid speech [Gopnik] |
23134 | A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik] |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |