53 ideas
| 9247 | Life will be lived better if it has no meaning [Camus] |
| 5988 | Anaximander produced the first philosophy book (and maybe the first book) [Anaximander, by Bodnár] |
| 6707 | Suicide - whether life is worth living - is the one serious philosophical problem [Camus] |
| 9245 | To an absurd mind reason is useless, and there is nothing beyond reason [Camus] |
| 1496 | The earth is stationary, because it is in the centre, and has no more reason to move one way than another [Anaximander, by Aristotle] |
| 9244 | Logic is easy, but what about logic to the point of death? [Camus] |
| 9935 | Mathematical truth is always compromising between ordinary language and sensible epistemology [Benacerraf] |
| 13412 | Obtaining numbers by abstraction is impossible - there are too many; only a rule could give them, in order [Benacerraf] |
| 13413 | We must explain how we know so many numbers, and recognise ones we haven't met before [Benacerraf] |
| 9912 | There are no such things as numbers [Benacerraf] |
| 9901 | Numbers can't be sets if there is no agreement on which sets they are [Benacerraf] |
| 13411 | If numbers are basically the cardinals (Frege-Russell view) you could know some numbers in isolation [Benacerraf] |
| 9151 | Benacerraf says numbers are defined by their natural ordering [Benacerraf, by Fine,K] |
| 13891 | To understand finite cardinals, it is necessary and sufficient to understand progressions [Benacerraf, by Wright,C] |
| 17904 | A set has k members if it one-one corresponds with the numbers less than or equal to k [Benacerraf] |
| 17906 | To explain numbers you must also explain cardinality, the counting of things [Benacerraf] |
| 9898 | We can count intransitively (reciting numbers) without understanding transitive counting of items [Benacerraf] |
| 17903 | Someone can recite numbers but not know how to count things; but not vice versa [Benacerraf] |
| 9897 | The application of a system of numbers is counting and measurement [Benacerraf] |
| 9900 | For Zermelo 3 belongs to 17, but for Von Neumann it does not [Benacerraf] |
| 9899 | The successor of x is either x and all its members, or just the unit set of x [Benacerraf] |
| 8697 | Disputes about mathematical objects seem irrelevant, and mathematicians cannot resolve them [Benacerraf, by Friend] |
| 8304 | No particular pair of sets can tell us what 'two' is, just by one-to-one correlation [Benacerraf, by Lowe] |
| 9906 | If ordinal numbers are 'reducible to' some set-theory, then which is which? [Benacerraf] |
| 13415 | An adequate account of a number must relate it to its series [Benacerraf] |
| 9907 | If any recursive sequence will explain ordinals, then it seems to be the structure which matters [Benacerraf] |
| 9908 | The job is done by the whole system of numbers, so numbers are not objects [Benacerraf] |
| 9909 | The number 3 defines the role of being third in a progression [Benacerraf] |
| 9911 | Number words no more have referents than do the parts of a ruler [Benacerraf] |
| 8925 | Mathematical objects only have properties relating them to other 'elements' of the same structure [Benacerraf] |
| 9938 | How can numbers be objects if order is their only property? [Benacerraf, by Putnam] |
| 9910 | Number-as-objects works wholesale, but fails utterly object by object [Benacerraf] |
| 17927 | Realists have semantics without epistemology, anti-realists epistemology but bad semantics [Benacerraf, by Colyvan] |
| 9936 | The platonist view of mathematics doesn't fit our epistemology very well [Benacerraf] |
| 9903 | Number words are not predicates, as they function very differently from adjectives [Benacerraf] |
| 9904 | The set-theory paradoxes mean that 17 can't be the class of all classes with 17 members [Benacerraf] |
| 14874 | Anaximander saw the contradiction in the world - that its own qualities destroy it [Anaximander, by Nietzsche] |
| 9905 | Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf] |
| 9249 | Whether we are free is uninteresting; we can only experience our freedom [Camus] |
| 9253 | The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it [Camus] |
| 9250 | Discussing ethics is pointless; moral people behave badly, and integrity doesn't need rules [Camus] |
| 9252 | The more one loves the stronger the absurd grows [Camus] |
| 9251 | One can be virtuous through a whim [Camus] |
| 9243 | If we believe existence is absurd, this should dictate our conduct [Camus] |
| 6708 | Happiness and the absurd go together, each leading to the other [Camus] |
| 9242 | Essential problems either risk death, or intensify the passion of life [Camus] |
| 9246 | Danger and integrity are not in the leap of faith, but in remaining poised just before the leap [Camus] |
| 9248 | It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will [Camus] |
| 13222 | The Boundless cannot exist on its own, and must have something contrary to it [Aristotle on Anaximander] |
| 404 | Things begin and end in the Unlimited, and are balanced over time according to justice [Anaximander] |
| 405 | The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless [Anaximander] |
| 1495 | Anaximander introduced the idea that the first principle and element of things was the Boundless [Anaximander, by Simplicius] |
| 1746 | The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable [Anaximander, by Diog. Laertius] |