64 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 19199 | Some say metaphysics is a highly generalised empirical study of objects [Tarski] |
| 19193 | Disputes that fail to use precise scientific terminology are all meaningless [Tarski] |
| 19179 | For a definition we need the words or concepts used, the rules, and the structure of the language [Tarski] |
| 19178 | Definitions of truth should not introduce a new version of the concept, but capture the old one [Tarski] |
| 19177 | A definition of truth should be materially adequate and formally correct [Tarski] |
| 19186 | A rigorous definition of truth is only possible in an exactly specified language [Tarski] |
| 19194 | We may eventually need to split the word 'true' into several less ambiguous terms [Tarski] |
| 19196 | Scheme (T) is not a definition of truth [Tarski] |
| 19180 | It is convenient to attach 'true' to sentences, and hence the language must be specified [Tarski] |
| 19181 | In the classical concept of truth, 'snow is white' is true if snow is white [Tarski] |
| 19182 | Use 'true' so that all T-sentences can be asserted, and the definition will then be 'adequate' [Tarski] |
| 19183 | Each interpreted T-sentence is a partial definition of truth; the whole definition is their conjunction [Tarski] |
| 19198 | We don't give conditions for asserting 'snow is white'; just that assertion implies 'snow is white' is true [Tarski] |
| 19184 | The best truth definition involves other semantic notions, like satisfaction (relating terms and objects) [Tarski] |
| 19191 | Specify satisfaction for simple sentences, then compounds; true sentences are satisfied by all objects [Tarski] |
| 19188 | We can't use a semantically closed language, or ditch our logic, so a meta-language is needed [Tarski] |
| 19189 | The metalanguage must contain the object language, logic, and defined semantics [Tarski] |
| 10824 | If listing equivalences is a reduction of truth, witchcraft is just a list of witch-victim pairs [Field,H on Tarski] |
| 19190 | We need an undefined term 'true' in the meta-language, specified by axioms [Tarski] |
| 19197 | Truth can't be eliminated from universal claims, or from particular unspecified claims [Tarski] |
| 19185 | Semantics is a very modest discipline which solves no real problems [Tarski] |
| 19195 | Truth tables give prior conditions for logic, but are outside the system, and not definitions [Tarski] |
| 19192 | The truth definition proves semantic contradiction and excluded middle laws (not the logic laws) [Tarski] |
| 19187 | The Liar makes us assert a false sentence, so it must be taken seriously [Tarski] |
| 3942 | I do not believe in the existence of anything, if I see no reason to believe it [Berkeley] |
| 3952 | I know that nothing inconsistent can exist [Berkeley] |
| 3959 | There is no other substance, in a strict sense, than spirit [Berkeley] |
| 3946 | A thing is shown to be impossible if a contradiction is demonstrated within its definition [Berkeley] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3958 | Since our ideas vary when the real things are said to be unchanged, they cannot be true copies [Berkeley] |
| 3943 | If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley] |
| 3931 | Sensible objects are just sets of sensible qualities [Berkeley] |
| 5192 | Berkeley did not deny material things; he merely said they must be defined through sensations [Berkeley, by Ayer] |
| 5174 | Berkeley needed a phenomenalist account of the self, as well as of material things [Ayer on Berkeley] |
| 1103 | 'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley] |
| 6403 | For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling] |
| 3936 | Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley] |
| 3930 | There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley] |
| 3939 | I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley] |
| 3945 | There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley] |
| 3947 | Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley] |
| 3933 | Primary qualities (such as shape, solidity, mass) are held to really exist, unlike secondary qualities [Berkeley] |
| 3934 | A mite would see its own foot as large, though we would see it as tiny [Berkeley] |
| 3935 | The apparent size of an object varies with its distance away, so that can't be a property of the object [Berkeley] |
| 3937 | 'Solidity' is either not a sensible quality at all, or it is clearly relative to our senses [Berkeley] |
| 3940 | Distance is not directly perceived by sight [Berkeley] |
| 3957 | Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves [Berkeley] |
| 3953 | Real things and imaginary or dreamed things differ because the latter are much fainter [Berkeley] |
| 3938 | Geometry is originally perceived by senses, and so is not purely intellectual [Berkeley] |
| 3944 | It is possible that we could perceive everything as we do now, but nothing actually existed. [Berkeley] |
| 3932 | A hot hand and a cold hand will have different experiences in the same tepid water [Berkeley] |
| 3948 | Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley] |
| 3941 | How can that which is unthinking be a cause of thought? [Berkeley] |
| 5374 | Berkeley probably used 'idea' to mean both the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended [Russell on Berkeley] |
| 3954 | Immorality is not in the action, but in the deviation of the will from moral law [Berkeley] |
| 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] |
| 3950 | There must be a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by him [Berkeley] |
| 3951 | There must be a God, because I and my ideas are not independent [Berkeley] |
| 3949 | It has been proved that creation is the workmanship of God, from its beauty and usefulness [Berkeley] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3956 | People are responsible because they have limited power, though this ultimately derives from God [Berkeley] |
| 3955 | If sin is not just physical, we don't consider God the origin of sin because he causes physical events [Berkeley] |