116 ideas
14092 | Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms [Rosen] |
14100 | Figuring in the definition of a thing doesn't make it a part of that thing [Rosen] |
18851 | Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element [Rosen] |
14096 | Explanations fail to be monotonic [Rosen] |
458 | Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles] |
5112 | Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
14097 | Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen] |
22355 | In the realist view, the real external world explains how it (and perceptions of it) are possible [Williams,B] |
14095 | Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients [Rosen] |
14093 | An 'intrinsic' property is one that depends on a thing and its parts, and not on its relations [Rosen] |
8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |
18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
13209 | There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
18849 | Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant [Rosen] |
18850 | 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting [Rosen] |
18858 | Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another [Rosen] |
14094 | The excellent notion of metaphysical 'necessity' cannot be defined [Rosen] |
18857 | Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds [Rosen] |
18856 | Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things [Rosen] |
18848 | Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity? [Rosen] |
23283 | Necessity implies possibility, but in experience it matters which comes first [Williams,B] |
18855 | Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen] |
14101 | Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen] |
18853 | A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen] |
462 | One vision is produced by both eyes [Empedocles] |
4244 | It is very confused to deduce a nonrelativist morality of universal toleration from relativism [Williams,B] |
4243 | Our ability to react to an alien culture shows that ethical thought extends beyond cultural boundaries [Williams,B] |
3238 | 'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague [Williams,B] |
3239 | You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type [Williams,B] |
7946 | The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C] |
2181 | It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B] |
2176 | There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B] |
22765 | Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles] |
1524 | For Empedocles thinking is almost identical to perception [Empedocles, by Theophrastus] |
24008 | Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B] |
24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
14099 | 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen] |
4317 | We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham] |
9284 | Reasons are 'internal' if they give a person a motive to act, but 'external' otherwise [Williams,B] |
2174 | Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B] |
22455 | Many ethical theories neglect the power of regretting the ought not acted upon [Williams,B] |
4114 | Philosophers try to produce ethical theories because they falsely assume that ethics can be simple [Williams,B] |
22453 | Moral conflicts have a different feeling and structure from belief conflicts [Williams,B, by Foot] |
22454 | We tolerate inconsistency in ethics but not in other beliefs (which reflect an independent order) [Williams,B, by Foot] |
22450 | If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot] |
2178 | In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B] |
20168 | Blame usually has no effect if the recipient thinks it unjustified [Williams,B] |
20167 | Blame partly rests on the fiction that blamed agents always know their obligations [Williams,B] |
4128 | Intuitionism has been demolished by critics, and no longer looks interesting [Williams,B] |
4366 | We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse] |
4132 | The category of person is a weak basis for ethics, because it is not fixed but comes in degrees [Williams,B] |
24007 | Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B] |
4134 | The weakness of prescriptivism is shown by "I simply don't like staying at good hotels" [Williams,B] |
4135 | Some ethical ideas, such as 'treachery' and 'promise', seem to express a union of facts and values [Williams,B] |
22410 | Maybe the unthinkable is a moral category, and considering some options is dishonourable or absurd [Williams,B] |
552 | Empedocles said good and evil were the basic principles [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
22408 | Consequentialism assumes that situations can be compared [Williams,B] |
22411 | For a consequentialist massacring 7 million must be better than massacring 7 million and one [Williams,B] |
4120 | It is an error of consequentialism to think we just aim at certain states of affairs; we also want to act [Williams,B] |
23282 | If all that matters in morality is motive and intention, that makes moral luck irrelevant [Williams,B] |
4252 | Promise keeping increases reliability, by making deliberation focus on something which would be overlooked [Williams,B] |
4116 | A weakness of contractual theories is the position of a person of superior ability and power [Williams,B] |
2169 | Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B] |
4112 | A crucial feature of moral thought is second-order desire - the desire to have certain desires [Williams,B] |
24010 | An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B] |
23279 | It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B] |
23280 | Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character [Williams,B] |
3236 | Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society [Williams,B] |
4113 | 'Deon' in Greek means what one must do; there was no word meaning 'duty' [Williams,B] |
4250 | The concept of a 'duty to myself' is fraudulent [Williams,B] |
4110 | Obligation and duty look backwards (because of a promise or job), although the acts are in the future [Williams,B] |
4248 | Not all moral deliberations lead to obligations; some merely reveal what 'may' be done [Williams,B] |
4249 | "Ought implies can" is a famous formula in connection with moral obligation [Williams,B] |
2172 | The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B] |
4121 | Why should I think of myself as both the legislator and the citizen who follows the laws? [Williams,B] |
22409 | We don't have a duty to ensure that others do their duty [Williams,B] |
4122 | If the self becomes completely impartial, it no longer has enough identity to worry about its interests [Williams,B] |
2180 | If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B] |
24012 | Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B] |
2179 | If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B] |
22407 | Utilitarianism cannot make any serious sense of integrity [Williams,B] |
23278 | For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B] |
4124 | Utilitarian benevolence involves no particular attachments, and is immune to the inverse square law [Williams,B] |
4245 | Ethical conviction must be to some extent passive, and can't just depend on the will and decisions [Williams,B] |
4246 | Taking responsibility won't cure ethical uncertainty by; we are uncertain what to decide [Williams,B] |
3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [Williams,B] |
3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
3235 | It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight [Williams,B] |
4247 | It is a mark of our having ethical values that we aim to reproduce them in our children [Williams,B] |
4131 | Most women see an early miscarriage and a late stillbirth as being very different in character [Williams,B] |
4133 | Speciesism isn't like racism, because the former implies a viewpoint which belongs to no one [Williams,B] |
589 | 'Nature' is just a word invented by people [Empedocles] |
21823 | The principle of 'Friendship' in Empedocles is the One, and is bodiless [Empedocles, by Plotinus] |
2680 | Empedocles said that there are four material elements, and two further creative elements [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
6002 | Empedocles says bone is water, fire and earth in ratio 2:4:2 [Empedocles, by Inwood] |
13207 | Fire, Water, Air and Earth are elements, being simple as well as homoeomerous [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
459 | All change is unity through love or division through hate [Empedocles] |
13218 | The elements combine in coming-to-be, but how do the elements themselves come-to-be? [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
13225 | Love and Strife only explain movement if their effects are distinctive [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
460 | If the one Being ever diminishes it would no longer exist, and what could ever increase it? [Empedocles] |
18854 | The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world [Rosen] |
14098 | An acid is just a proton donor [Rosen] |
5090 | Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle] |
466 | God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles] |
461 | God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles] |
1719 | In Empedocles' theory God is ignorant because, unlike humans, he doesn't know one of the elements (strife) [Aristotle on Empedocles] |
1522 | It is wretched not to want to think clearly about the gods [Empedocles] |
2175 | There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B] |