17 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 7760 | Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan] |
| 5811 | A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan] |
| 5812 | Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan] |
| 5814 | 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan] |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 10435 | A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury] |
| 10451 | Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan] |
| 5813 | A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan] |
| 5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |