96 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| 20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| 14092 | Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms [Rosen] |
| 1489 | Modern philosophy tends to be a theory-constructing extension of science, but there is also problem-solving [Nagel] |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 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] |
| 14097 | Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen] |
| 4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
| 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] |
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| 3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| 3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| 1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| 3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| 3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| 3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
| 3288 | Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel] |
| 6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
| 4883 | Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel] |
| 3287 | We can't be objective about experience [Nagel] |
| 20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
| 4989 | Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel] |
| 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] |
| 4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
| 14099 | 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen] |
| 6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
| 6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
| 3284 | There is no one theory of how to act (or what to believe) [Nagel] |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| 3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
| 6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| 6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
| 3282 | The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel] |
| 3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| 6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| 3278 | An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel] |
| 6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
| 3277 | In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel] |
| 3275 | Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel] |
| 3281 | The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel] |
| 3273 | Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel] |
| 3274 | Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel] |
| 6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
| 3276 | A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel] |
| 3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
| 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] |
| 5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |