82 ideas
| 8013 | In the Reformation, morality became unconditional but irrational, individually autonomous, and secular [MacIntyre] |
| 8021 | The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality [MacIntyre] |
| 8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
| 8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
| 8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
| 8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
| 18335 | There are five problems which the truth-maker theory might solve [Rami] |
| 18334 | The truth-maker idea is usually justified by its explanatory power, or intuitive appeal [Rami] |
| 18339 | The truth-making relation can be one-to-one, or many-to-many [Rami] |
| 18333 | Central idea: truths need truthmakers; and possibly all truths have them, and makers entail truths [Rami] |
| 18342 | Most theorists say that truth-makers necessitate their truths [Rami] |
| 18340 | It seems best to assume different kinds of truth-maker, such as objects, facts, tropes, or events [Rami] |
| 18341 | Truth-makers seem to be states of affairs (plus optional individuals), or individuals and properties [Rami] |
| 18346 | 'Truth supervenes on being' only gives necessary (not sufficient) conditions for contingent truths [Rami] |
| 18345 | 'Truth supervenes on being' avoids entities as truth-makers for negative truths [Rami] |
| 18343 | Maybe a truth-maker also works for the entailments of the given truth [Rami] |
| 18338 | Truth-making is usually internalist, but the correspondence theory is externalist [Rami] |
| 18337 | Correspondence theories assume that truth is a representation relation [Rami] |
| 18347 | Deflationist truth is an infinitely disjunctive property [Rami] |
| 18350 | Truth-maker theorists should probably reject the converse Barcan formula [Rami] |
| 18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |
| 4938 | Prior to language, concepts are universals created by self-mapping of brain activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 10938 | The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones [Rami] |
| 10940 | An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object [Rami] |
| 10939 | 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami] |
| 10934 | Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties [Rami] |
| 10933 | Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility [Rami] |
| 10932 | If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' [Rami] |
| 8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
| 10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
| 4934 | Cultures have a common core of colour naming, based on three axes of colour pairs [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
| 8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
| 8006 | When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre] |
| 4924 | A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4932 | A conscious state endures for about 100 milliseconds, known as the 'specious present' [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4931 | Consciousness is a process (of neural interactions), not a location, thing, property, connectivity, or activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4923 | The three essentials of conscious experience are privateness, unity and informativeness [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4941 | Consciousness can create new axioms, but computers can't do that [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4930 | Consciousness arises from high speed interactions between clusters of neurons [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4929 | Dreams and imagery show the brain can generate awareness and meaning without input [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4940 | Physicists see information as a measure of order, but for biologists it is symbolic exchange between animals [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4935 | The sensation of red is a point in neural space created by dimensions of neuronal activity [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4936 | The self is founded on bodily awareness centred in the brain stem [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4939 | A sense of self begins either internally, or externally through language and society [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
| 4925 | Brains can initiate free actions before the person is aware of their own decision [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4933 | Consciousness is a process, not a thing, as it maintains unity as its composition changes [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4928 | Brain complexity balances segregation and integration, like a good team of specialists [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 4927 | Information-processing views of the brain assume the existence of 'information', and dubious brain codes [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
| 4922 | Consciousness involves interaction with persons and the world, as well as brain functions [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 5793 | Concepts and generalisations result from brain 'global mapping' by 'reentry' [Edelman/Tononi, by Searle] |
| 4926 | Concepts arise when the brain maps its own activities [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
| 8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
| 8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
| 8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
| 8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
| 8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
| 8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
| 8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
| 8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
| 8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
| 8012 | The value/fact logical gulf is misleading, because social facts involve values [MacIntyre] |
| 4937 | Systems that generate a sense of value are basic to the primitive brain [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
| 8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
| 7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
| 8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
| 8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
| 8001 | 'Dikaiosune' is justice, but also fairness and personal integrity [MacIntyre] |
| 8023 | My duties depend on my identity, which depends on my social relations [MacIntyre] |
| 8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
| 8022 | I am naturally free if I am not tied to anyone by a contract [MacIntyre] |
| 8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
| 23080 | Liberals debate how conservative or radical to be, but don't question their basics [MacIntyre] |
| 8031 | Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre] |
| 8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
| 8008 | The Bible is a story about God in which humans are incidental characters [MacIntyre] |