95 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 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] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 2896 | I want to understand the Socratic idea that 'reason equals virtue equals happiness' [Nietzsche] |
| 2897 | With dialectics the rabble gets on top [Nietzsche] |
| 2898 | Anything which must first be proved is of little value [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 18316 | The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality [Nietzsche] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 18314 | In language we treat 'ego' as a substance, and it is thus that we create the concept 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 18309 | The evidence of the senses is falsified by reason [Nietzsche] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 18323 | Any explanation will be accepted as true if it gives pleasure and a feeling of power [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 2899 | The fanatical rationality of Greek philosophy shows that they were in a state of emergency [Nietzsche] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 18313 | The big error is to think the will is a faculty producing effects; in fact, it is just a word [Nietzsche] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 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] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 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] |