97 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
18330 | Judging by the positive forces, the Renaissance was the last great age [Nietzsche] |
2900 | I revere Heraclitus [Nietzsche] |
2913 | Thucydides was the perfect anti-platonist sophist [Nietzsche] |
2909 | Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned [Nietzsche] |
2892 | Wanting a system in philosophy is a lack of integrity [Nietzsche] |
6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
2896 | I want to understand the Socratic idea that 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' [Nietzsche] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
2897 | With dialectics the rabble gets on top [Nietzsche] |
2898 | Anything which must first be proved is of little value [Nietzsche] |
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] |
12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
18317 | The 'real being' of things is a nothingness constructed from contradictions in the actual world [Nietzsche] |
18315 | We get the concept of 'being' from the concept of the 'ego' [Nietzsche] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
18316 | The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality [Nietzsche] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
18314 | In language we treat 'ego' as a substance, and it is thus that we create the concept 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
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] |
8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
18309 | The evidence of the senses is falsified by reason [Nietzsche] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
18323 | Any explanation will be accepted as true if it gives pleasure and a feeling of power [Nietzsche] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
18310 | The 'highest' concepts are the most general and empty concepts [Nietzsche] |
20368 | There are no 'individual' persons; we are each the sum of humanity up to this moment [Nietzsche] |
3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
2899 | The fanatical rationality of Greek philosophy shows that they were in a state of emergency [Nietzsche] |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
18313 | The big error is to think the will is a faculty producing effects; in fact, it is just a word [Nietzsche] |
20133 | The 'motive' is superficial, and may even hide the antecedents of a deed [Nietzsche] |
18326 | The beautiful never stands alone; it derives from man's pleasure in man [Nietzsche] |
20101 | Without music life would be a mistake [Nietzsche] |
2902 | Healthy morality is dominated by an instinct for life [Nietzsche] |
18311 | Philosophers hate values having an origin, and want values to be self-sufficient [Nietzsche] |
18324 | There are no moral facts, and moralists believe in realities which do not exist [Nietzsche] |
2904 | The doctrine of free will has been invented essentially in order to blame and punish people [Nietzsche] |
2894 | Value judgements about life can never be true [Nietzsche] |
18321 | To evaluate life one must know it, but also be situated outside of it [Nietzsche] |
2895 | The value of life cannot be estimated [Nietzsche] |
18322 | When we establish values, that is life itself establishing them, through us [Nietzsche] |
2893 | In every age the wisest people have judged life to be worthless [Nietzsche] |
18308 | A philosopher fails in wisdom if he thinks the value of life is a problem [Nietzsche] |
18319 | Love is the spiritualisation of sensuality [Nietzsche] |
2903 | A good human will be virtuous because they are happy [Nietzsche] |
2891 | Only the English actually strive after happiness [Nietzsche] |
18327 | A wholly altruistic morality, with no egoism, is a thoroughly bad thing [Nietzsche] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
15606 | Military idea: what does not kill me makes me stronger [Nietzsche] |
18328 | Invalids are parasites [Nietzsche] |
18331 | Democracy is organisational power in decline [Nietzsche] |
18332 | The creation of institutions needs a determination which is necessarily anti-liberal [Nietzsche] |
2911 | True justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals [Nietzsche] |
18320 | To renounce war is to renounce the grand life [Nietzsche] |
2908 | There is a need for educators who are themselves educated [Nietzsche] |
18329 | Sometimes it is an error to have been born - but we can rectify it [Nietzsche] |
2905 | 'Purpose' is just a human fiction [Nietzsche] |
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] |
18312 | The supreme general but empty concepts must be compatible, and hence we get 'God' [Nietzsche] |
2906 | By denying God we deny human accountability, and thus we redeem the world [Nietzsche] |
2901 | How could the Church intelligently fight against passion if it preferred poorness of spirit to intelligence? [Nietzsche] |
18325 | Christians believe that only God can know what is good for man [Nietzsche] |
18318 | People who disparage actual life avenge themselves by imagining a better one [Nietzsche] |