45 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
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] |
15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |