141 ideas
| 3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett] |
| 6294 | In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John] |
| 3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett] |
| 8821 | Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John] |
| 22355 | In the realist view, the real external world explains how it (and perceptions of it) are possible [Williams,B] |
| 14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
| 7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
| 23283 | Necessity implies possibility, but in experience it matters which comes first [Williams,B] |
| 2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
| 3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett] |
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| 2523 | That every mammal has a mother is a secure reality, but without foundations [Dennett] |
| 3795 | Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) [Dennett] |
| 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] |
| 7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
| 4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
| 2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
| 7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
| 7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
| 4880 | Sentience comes in grades from robotic to super-human; we only draw a line for moral reasons [Dennett] |
| 2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
| 7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| 3158 | Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett] |
| 2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
| 6624 | Dennett denies the existence of qualia [Dennett, by Lowe] |
| 4873 | What is it like to notice an uncomfortable position when you are asleep? [Dennett] |
| 7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
| 7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
| 7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
| 7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
| 7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
| 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] |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett] |
| 7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
| 4881 | Being a person must involve having second-order beliefs and desires (about beliefs and desires) [Dennett] |
| 7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
| 7946 | The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C] |
| 7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
| 7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
| 7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
| 7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
| 7655 | The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett] |
| 3800 | You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise [Dennett, by PG] |
| 3803 | Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? [Dennett] |
| 3791 | Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett] |
| 3794 | Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett] |
| 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] |
| 7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
| 7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
| 3159 | Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett] |
| 3796 | The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations [Dennett] |
| 3161 | If mind is just an explanation, the explainer must have beliefs [Rey on Dennett] |
| 3986 | The 'intentional stance' is a way of interpreting an entity by assuming it is rational and self-aware [Dennett] |
| 2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
| 7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
| 4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
| 4879 | There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett] |
| 7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
| 7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
| 7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
| 7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
| 4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
| 4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
| 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] |
| 3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
| 3177 | You couldn't drive a car without folk psychology [Dennett] |
| 2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
| 4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett] |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| 23803 | States have content if we can predict them well by assuming intentionality [Dennett, by Schulte] |
| 3984 | The nature of content is entirely based on its functional role [Dennett] |
| 4882 | Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett] |
| 2529 | Maybe there can be non-conscious concepts (e.g. in bees) [Dennett] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 3233 | Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs [Williams,B] |
| 3234 | Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view [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] |
| 3983 | Learning is evolution in the brain [Dennett] |
| 4131 | Most women see an early miscarriage and a late stillbirth as being very different in character [Williams,B] |
| 4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
| 4133 | Speciesism isn't like racism, because the former implies a viewpoint which belongs to no one [Williams,B] |
| 7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
| 3985 | Biology is a type of engineering, not a search for laws of nature [Dennett] |
| 4877 | Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett] |
| 3804 | Darwin's idea was the best idea ever [Dennett] |
| 8141 | He that does evil has not seen God [John] |
| 8140 | God is love [John] |
| 8139 | If you love the world, then you do not love the Father [John] |
| 2175 | There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B] |