150 ideas
7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
17240 | Definitions are the first step in philosophy [Hobbes] |
6211 | Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes] |
21634 | Metaphysics is (supposedly) first the ontology, then in general what things are like [Hofweber] |
16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
21666 | 'Fundamentality' is either a superficial idea, or much too obscure [Hofweber] |
8014 | Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre] |
17237 | Definitions of things that are caused must express their manner of generation [Hobbes] |
17239 | Definition is resolution of names into successive genera, and finally the difference [Hobbes] |
17241 | A defined name should not appear in the definition [Hobbes] |
17242 | 'Petitio principii' is reusing the idea to be defined, in disguised words [Hobbes] |
21640 | 'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely' [Hofweber] |
17990 | Instances of minimal truth miss out propositions inexpressible in current English [Hofweber] |
17245 | A part of a part is a part of a whole [Hobbes] |
21657 | Since properties can have properties, some theorists rank them in 'types' [Hofweber] |
21653 | Maybe not even names are referential, but are just by used by speakers to refer [Hofweber] |
10001 | An adjective contributes semantically to a noun phrase [Hofweber] |
21636 | 'Singular terms' are not found in modern linguistics, and are not the same as noun phrases [Hofweber] |
21637 | If two processes are said to be identical, that doesn't make their terms refer to entities [Hofweber] |
16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
10007 | Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber] |
17988 | Quantification can't all be substitutional; some reference is obviously to objects [Hofweber] |
10002 | '2 + 2 = 4' can be read as either singular or plural [Hofweber] |
21644 | Numbers are used as singular terms, as adjectives, and as symbols [Hofweber] |
21646 | The Amazonian Piraha language is said to have no number words [Hofweber] |
9998 | What is the relation of number words as singular-terms, adjectives/determiners, and symbols? [Hofweber] |
17258 | If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to [Hobbes] |
21665 | The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is that all numbers are composed uniquely of primes [Hofweber] |
21649 | How can words be used for counting if they are objects? [Hofweber] |
10003 | Why is arithmetic hard to learn, but then becomes easy? [Hofweber] |
10008 | Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, as the quantifiers are purely inferential [Hofweber] |
10005 | Arithmetic doesn’t simply depend on objects, since it is true of fictional objects [Hofweber] |
10000 | We might eliminate adjectival numbers by analysing them into blocks of quantifiers [Hofweber] |
21647 | Logicism makes sense of our ability to know arithmetic just by thought [Hofweber] |
21648 | Neo-Fregeans are dazzled by a technical result, and ignore practicalities [Hofweber] |
10006 | First-order logic captures the inferential relations of numbers, but not the semantics [Hofweber] |
16789 | Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being [Hobbes] |
17253 | Change is nothing but movement [Hobbes] |
21664 | Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber] |
21660 | Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber] |
7559 | Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes] |
21661 | There are probably ineffable facts, systematically hidden from us [Hofweber] |
17989 | Since properties have properties, there can be a typed or a type-free theory of them [Hofweber] |
16670 | Accidents are just modes of thinking about bodies [Hobbes] |
16621 | Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size [Hobbes] |
16734 | The complete power of an event is just the aggregate of the qualities that produced it [Hobbes] |
17247 | The only generalities or universals are names or signs [Hobbes] |
14960 | Bodies are independent of thought, and coincide with part of space [Hobbes] |
17250 | If you separate the two places of one thing, you will also separate the thing [Hobbes] |
17249 | If you separated two things in the same place, you would also separate the places [Hobbes] |
21652 | Our perceptual beliefs are about ordinary objects, not about simples arranged chair-wise [Hofweber] |
17248 | If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it [Hobbes] |
16620 | A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes] |
16790 | A body is always the same, whether the parts are together or dispersed [Hobbes] |
17244 | To make a whole, parts needn't be put together, but can be united in the mind [Hobbes] |
17233 | Particulars contain universal things [Hobbes] |
17246 | Some accidental features are permanent, unless the object perishes [Hobbes] |
17251 | The feature which picks out or names a thing is usually called its 'essence' [Hobbes] |
16622 | Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes] |
17257 | It is the same river if it has the same source, no matter what flows in it [Hobbes] |
12853 | Some individuate the ship by unity of matter, and others by unity of form [Hobbes] |
17256 | If a new ship were made of the discarded planks, would two ships be numerically the same? [Hobbes] |
16794 | As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being [Hobbes] |
17255 | Two bodies differ when (at some time) you can say something of one you can't say of the other [Hobbes] |
6215 | 'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause [Hobbes] |
21663 | Counterfactuals are essential for planning, and learning from mistakes [Hofweber] |
16582 | We can imagine a point swelling and contracting - but not how this could be done [Hobbes] |
16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
2356 | Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes [Hobbes] |
16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
2357 | Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd [Hobbes] |
17238 | Science aims to show causes and generation of things [Hobbes] |
17260 | Imagination is just weakened sensation [Hobbes] |
10004 | Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber] |
19373 | A 'conatus' is an initial motion, experienced by us as desire or aversion [Hobbes, by Arthur,R] |
2385 | If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes] |
2358 | Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes] |
2384 | Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes] |
6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
6214 | Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes] |
6208 | Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes] |
2948 | Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being [Hobbes] |
23987 | The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief [Hobbes, by Goldie] |
17261 | Apart from pleasure and pain, the only emotions are appetite and aversion [Hobbes] |
17236 | Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned [Hobbes] |
21654 | The "Fido"-Fido theory of meaning says every expression in a language has a referent [Hofweber] |
21641 | Inferential role semantics is an alternative to semantics that connects to the world [Hofweber] |
21638 | Syntactic form concerns the focus of the sentence, as well as the truth-conditions [Hofweber] |
21658 | Properties can be expressed in a language despite the absence of a single word for them [Hofweber] |
21659 | 'Being taller than this' is a predicate which can express many different properties [Hofweber] |
21655 | Compositonality is a way to build up the truth-conditions of a sentence [Hofweber] |
21656 | Proposition have no content, because they are content [Hofweber] |
21635 | Without propositions there can be no beliefs or desires [Hofweber] |
21662 | Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber] |
21645 | 'Semantic type coercion' is selecting the reading of a word to make the best sense [Hofweber] |
21639 | 'Background deletion' is appropriately omitting background from an answer [Hofweber] |
17991 | Holism says language can't be translated; the expressibility hypothesis says everything can [Hofweber] |
2362 | The will is just the last appetite before action [Hobbes] |
7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
2363 | Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars [Hobbes] |
7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |
2360 | 'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes] |
7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
2368 | Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so [Hobbes] |
6209 | There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes] |
2359 | Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes] |
2370 | All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer [Hobbes] |
7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
6210 | Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes] |
8015 | Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
2371 | A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes] |
2372 | The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes] |
5337 | For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan] |
2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
8016 | Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
2375 | Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes] |
2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
2373 | The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes] |
2382 | Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes] |
2383 | Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes] |
2376 | Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes] |
2367 | In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes] |
19764 | Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau] |
20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
22595 | Liberty is the triumph of the individual, over both despotic government and enslaving majorities [Constant] |
22597 | Minority rights are everyone's rights, because we all have turns in the minority [Constant] |
2366 | There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another [Hobbes] |
20485 | Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
2369 | If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes] |
20484 | We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
7573 | The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural [Hobbes, by Jolley] |
2380 | Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence [Hobbes] |
23609 | I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes] |
2361 | If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition [Hobbes] |
6212 | Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes] |
16600 | Prime matter is body considered with mere size and extension, and potential [Hobbes] |
17252 | Acting on a body is either creating or destroying a property in it [Hobbes] |
17254 | An effect needs a sufficient and necessary cause [Hobbes] |
2364 | Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between [Hobbes] |
17235 | A cause is the complete sum of the features which necessitate the effect [Hobbes] |
17234 | Motion is losing one place and acquiring another [Hobbes] |
17259 | 'Force' is the quantity of movement imposed on something [Hobbes] |
17243 | Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories [Hobbes] |
7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
2365 | Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes] |
2378 | Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip [Hobbes] |