90 ideas
| 291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
| 19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
| 19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
| 19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
| 19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
| 19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
| 19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
| 12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
| 19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
| 19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
| 19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
| 19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| 19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
| 19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
| 19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
| 12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
| 12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
| 12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
| 12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
| 12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
| 12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| 12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
| 12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
| 12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
| 12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
| 12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
| 12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| 12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
| 12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
| 12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
| 12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
| 12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
| 12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
| 12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
| 12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
| 12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
| 12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
| 12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
| 12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| 12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
| 12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
| 12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
| 12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
| 19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
| 19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
| 19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
| 19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
| 19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
| 19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
| 19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
| 19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
| 19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
| 19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
| 19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
| 19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
| 19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
| 19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
| 19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
| 19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
| 19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
| 19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
| 19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
| 19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
| 19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
| 19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
| 19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |