54 ideas
| 13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
| 13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
| 4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
| 13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
| 9143 | Implicit definitions must be satisfiable, creative definitions introduce things, contextual definitions build on things [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| 10143 | 'Creative definitions' do not presuppose the existence of the objects defined [Fine,K] |
| 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] |
| 10145 | Abstracts cannot be identified with sets [Fine,K] |
| 10136 | Points in Euclidean space are abstract objects, but not introduced by abstraction [Fine,K] |
| 10144 | Postulationism says avoid abstract objects by giving procedures that produce truth [Fine,K] |
| 2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
| 4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
| 13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
| 4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
| 4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
| 4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
| 4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
| 4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
| 4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
| 4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
| 4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
| 4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
| 4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
| 4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
| 4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
| 4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
| 4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
| 4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
| 4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
| 4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
| 4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
| 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] |
| 4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
| 4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
| 9144 | Fine's 'procedural postulationism' uses creative definitions, but avoids abstract ontology [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| 10141 | Many different kinds of mathematical objects can be regarded as forms of abstraction [Fine,K] |
| 10135 | We can abstract from concepts (e.g. to number) and from objects (e.g. to direction) [Fine,K] |
| 9142 | Fine considers abstraction as reconceptualization, to produce new senses by analysing given senses [Fine,K, by Cook/Ebert] |
| 10137 | Abstractionism can be regarded as an alternative to set theory [Fine,K] |
| 10138 | An object is the abstract of a concept with respect to a relation on concepts [Fine,K] |
| 13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
| 4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |
| 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] |