68 ideas
| 13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
| 13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
| 4697 | There has been a distinct 'Social Turn' in recent philosophy, like the earlier 'Linguistic Turn' [O'Grady] |
| 21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
| 4731 | Good reasoning will avoid contradiction, enhance coherence, not ignore evidence, and maximise evidence [O'Grady] |
| 13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
| 4735 | Just as maps must simplify their subject matter, so thought has to be reductionist about reality [O'Grady] |
| 4703 | The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality' [O'Grady] |
| 4701 | To say a relative truth is inexpressible in other frameworks is 'weak', while saying it is false is 'strong' [O'Grady] |
| 13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
| 4705 | Logical relativism appears if we allow more than one legitimate logical system [O'Grady] |
| 4700 | A third value for truth might be "indeterminate", or a point on a scale between 'true' and 'false' [O'Grady] |
| 4704 | Wittgenstein reduced Russell's five primitive logical symbols to a mere one [O'Grady] |
| 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] |
| 13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
| 13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
| 16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
| 16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
| 12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
| 2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
| 13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
| 4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
| 4698 | What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them [O'Grady] |
| 13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
| 4715 | We may say that objects have intrinsic identity conditions, but still allow multiple accounts of them [O'Grady] |
| 13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
| 12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
| 13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
| 13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
| 16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
| 16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
| 13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
| 13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
| 13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
| 4719 | Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady] |
| 16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
| 4720 | Sense-data are only safe from scepticism if they are primitive and unconceptualised [O'Grady] |
| 4722 | Modern epistemology centres on debates about foundations, and about external justification [O'Grady] |
| 4724 | Internalists say the reasons for belief must be available to the subject, and externalists deny this [O'Grady] |
| 4723 | Coherence involves support from explanation and evidence, and also probability and confirmation [O'Grady] |
| 13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
| 4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
| 4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
| 4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
| 13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
| 4710 | Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady] |
| 4717 | If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady] |
| 4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
| 4734 | Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady] |
| 13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
| 13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
| 17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
| 13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
| 16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
| 13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
| 13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
| 13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
| 13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
| 13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
| 16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
| 13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |
| 4727 | The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas [O'Grady] |