58 ideas
3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
10468 | A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver] |
3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
10471 | Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver] |
10749 | Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
10750 | Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
10747 | Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver] |
10748 | Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver] |
10721 | If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver] |
10719 | There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver] |
10716 | There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver] |
10720 | We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver] |
10714 | The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver] |
10715 | There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver] |
10739 | The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver] |
10738 | Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver] |
10740 | The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver] |
10741 | Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver] |
10742 | Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver] |
10472 | 'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver] |
10724 | Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver] |
10730 | If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver] |
7963 | Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver] |
7962 | Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver] |
10727 | Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver] |
10722 | Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver] |
10744 | Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver] |
10726 | Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver] |
10725 | Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
10745 | Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver] |
3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
10746 | Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver] |
3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
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] |