56 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
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] |
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] |
15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
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] |
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] |
15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
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] |
2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |