250 ideas
22115 | Wise people should contemplate and discuss the truth, and fight against falsehood [Aquinas] |
20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
22101 | Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are [Aquinas] |
16395 | Kripke separated semantics from metaphysics, rather than linking them, making the latter independent [Kripke, by Stalnaker] |
17034 | Analyses of concepts using entirely different terms are very inclined to fail [Kripke] |
1848 | We are coerced into assent to a truth by reason's violence [Aquinas] |
1858 | The mind is compelled by necessary truths, but not by contingent truths [Aquinas] |
21267 | Supposing many principles is superfluous if a few will do it [Aquinas] |
22102 | Arguing with opponents uncovers truths, and restrains falsehoods [Aquinas] |
4955 | Some definitions aim to fix a reference rather than give a meaning [Kripke] |
13070 | If definitions must be general, and general terms can't individuate, then Socrates can't be defined [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
11197 | The definitions expressing identity are used to sort things [Aquinas] |
23176 | Truth is universal, but knowledge of it is not [Aquinas] |
20621 | Types of lying: Speak lies, intend lies, intend deception, aim at deceptive goal? [Aquinas, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
1852 | For the mind Good is one truth among many, and Truth is one good among many [Aquinas] |
21248 | If the existence of truth is denied, the 'Truth does not exist' must be true! [Aquinas] |
22104 | Truth is the conformity of being to intellect [Aquinas] |
15327 | Kripke's semantic theory has actually inspired promising axiomatic theories [Kripke, by Horsten] |
15343 | Kripke offers a semantic theory of truth (involving models) [Kripke, by Horsten] |
14966 | The Tarskian move to a metalanguage may not be essential for truth theories [Kripke, by Gupta] |
14967 | Certain three-valued languages can contain their own truth predicates [Kripke, by Gupta] |
16328 | Kripke classified fixed points, and illuminated their use for clarifications [Kripke, by Halbach] |
10163 | Propositional modal logic has been proved to be complete [Kripke, by Feferman/Feferman] |
10559 | Kripke's modal semantics presupposes certain facts about possible worlds [Kripke, by Zalta] |
16985 | Possible worlds allowed the application of set-theoretic models to modal logic [Kripke] |
10760 | With possible worlds, S4 and S5 are sound and complete, but S1-S3 are not even sound [Kripke, by Rossberg] |
16189 | The variable domain approach to quantified modal logic invalidates the Barcan Formula [Kripke, by Simchen] |
15132 | The Barcan formulas fail in models with varying domains [Kripke, by Williamson] |
23173 | If a syllogism admits one absurdity, others must follow [Aquinas] |
10437 | Names are rigid, making them unlike definite descriptions [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
4949 | Names are rigid designators, which designate the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
4951 | A bundle of qualities is a collection of abstractions, so it can't be a particular [Kripke] |
17031 | A name can still refer even if it satisfies none of its well-known descriptions [Kripke] |
9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
8957 | Some references, such as 'Neptune', have to be fixed by description rather than baptism [Kripke, by Szabó] |
9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
10428 | Proper names must have referents, because they are not descriptive [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
4959 | A name's reference is not fixed by any marks or properties of the referent [Kripke] |
16982 | A man has two names if the historical chains are different - even if they are the same! [Kripke] |
10792 | The substitutional quantifier is not in competition with the standard interpretation [Kripke, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
11195 | If affirmative propositions express being, we affirm about what is absent [Aquinas] |
22103 | Being is basic to thought, and all other concepts are additions to being [Aquinas] |
15812 | Being implies distinctness, which implies division, unity, and multitude [Aquinas] |
14896 | Kripke's metaphysics (essences, kinds, rigidity) blocks the slide into sociology [Kripke, by Ladyman/Ross] |
21268 | Non-human things are explicable naturally, and voluntary things by the will, so God is not needed [Aquinas] |
16655 | Different genera are delimited by modes of predication, which rest on modes of being [Aquinas] |
16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |
11201 | Properties have an incomplete essence, with definitions referring to their subject [Aquinas] |
11205 | If the form of 'human' contains 'many', Socrates isn't human; if it contains 'one', Socrates is Plato [Aquinas] |
17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
13090 | The principle of diversity for corporeal substances is their matter [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
17647 | Kripke individuates objects by essential modal properties (and presupposes essentialism) [Kripke, by Putnam] |
17555 | 'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas] |
16765 | Humans only have a single substantial form, which contains the others and acts for them [Aquinas] |
16766 | One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas] |
16995 | Given that a table is made of molecules, could it not be molecular and still be this table? [Kripke] |
17047 | If we imagine this table made of ice or different wood, we are imagining a different table [Kripke] |
11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
11202 | It is by having essence that things exist [Aquinas] |
11203 | Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas] |
5450 | For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Kripke, by Mautner] |
11200 | The definition of a physical object must include the material as well as the form [Aquinas] |
17055 | Atomic number 79 is part of the nature of the gold we know [Kripke] |
11196 | Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas] |
11208 | A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas] |
16997 | An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed [Kripke] |
17045 | De re modality is an object having essential properties [Kripke] |
17030 | Important properties of an object need not be essential to it [Kripke] |
16955 | Kripke says internal structure fixes species; I say it is genetic affinity and a common descent [Kripke, by Dummett] |
16996 | Given that Nixon is indeed a human being, that he might not have been does not concern knowledge [Kripke] |
13971 | Kripke claims that some properties, only knowable posteriori, are known a priori to be essential [Kripke, by Soames] |
12100 | An essence is the necessary properties, derived from an intuitive identity, in origin, type and material [Kripke, by Witt] |
16991 | No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time [Kripke] |
11867 | If we lose track of origin, how do we show we are maintaining a reference? [Kripke, by Wiggins] |
12018 | Kripke argues, of the Queen, that parents of an organism are essentially so [Kripke, by Forbes,G] |
17046 | Could the actual Queen have been born of different parents? [Kripke] |
8274 | Socrates can't have a necessary origin, because he might have had no 'origin' [Lowe on Kripke] |
16981 | With the necessity of self-identity plus Leibniz's Law, identity has to be an 'internal' relation [Kripke] |
17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
17036 | Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions [Kripke] |
17038 | If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different [Kripke] |
4942 | The indiscernibility of identicals is as self-evident as the law of contradiction [Kripke] |
16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
11880 | Kripke says his necessary a posteriori examples are known a priori to be necessary [Kripke, by Mackie,P] |
17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
4797 | Instead of being regularities, maybe natural laws are the weak a posteriori necessities of Kripke [Kripke, by Psillos] |
4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
17037 | Physical necessity may be necessity in the highest degree [Kripke] |
17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
16984 | I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke] |
4728 | Kripke separates necessary and a priori, proposing necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori examples [Kripke, by O'Grady] |
16990 | A priori = Necessary because we imagine all worlds, and we know without looking at actuality? [Kripke] |
9386 | The meter is defined necessarily, but the stick being one meter long is contingent a priori [Kripke] |
9385 | The very act of designating of an object with properties gives knowledge of a contingent truth [Kripke] |
4960 | "'Hesperus' is 'Phosphorus'" is necessarily true, if it is true, but not known a priori [Kripke] |
4966 | Theoretical identities are between rigid designators, and so are necessary a posteriori [Kripke] |
9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
2408 | Kripke has demonstrated that some necessary truths are only knowable a posteriori [Kripke, by Chalmers] |
13967 | Kripke's essentialist necessary a posteriori opened the gap between conceivable and really possible [Soames on Kripke] |
13970 | Kripke gets to the necessary a posteriori by only allowing conceivability when combined with actuality [Kripke, by Soames] |
4943 | Instead of talking about possible worlds, we can always say "It is possible that.." [Kripke] |
4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
16992 | Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe [Kripke] |
16983 | Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things [Kripke] |
16993 | If we discuss what might have happened to Nixon, we stipulate that it is about Nixon [Kripke] |
16998 | Transworld identification is unproblematic, because we stipulate that we rigidly refer to something [Kripke] |
17001 | A table in some possible world should not even be identified by its essential properties [Kripke] |
4952 | Identification across possible worlds does not need properties, even essential ones [Kripke] |
7761 | Test for rigidity by inserting into the sentence 'N might not have been N' [Kripke, by Lycan] |
7693 | Kripke avoids difficulties of transworld identity by saying it is a decision, not a discovery [Kripke, by Jacquette] |
5821 | Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical' [Kripke, by Putnam] |
14068 | If Kripke names must still denote a thing in a non-actual situation, the statue isn't its clay [Gibbard on Kripke] |
10436 | A rigid expression may refer at a world to an object not existing in that world [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
4953 | We do not begin with possible worlds and place objects in them; we begin with objects in the real world [Kripke] |
4961 | It is a necessary truth that Elizabeth II was the child of two particular parents [Kripke] |
9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
16986 | That there might have been unicorns is false; we don't know the circumstances for unicorns [Kripke] |
22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
23175 | The conclusions of speculative reason about necessities are certain [Aquinas] |
21337 | A knowing being possesses a further reality, the 'presence' of the thing known [Aquinas] |
8259 | Kripke has breathed new life into the a priori/a posteriori distinction [Kripke, by Lowe] |
16989 | Rather than 'a priori truth', it is best to stick to whether some person knows it on a priori evidence [Kripke] |
4947 | A priori truths can be known independently of experience - but they don't have to be [Kripke] |
21249 | Some things are self-evident to us; others are only self-evident in themselves [Aquinas] |
22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
21250 | A proposition is self-evident if the predicate is included in the essence of the subject [Aquinas] |
17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
13975 | Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Kripke, by Soames] |
17048 | Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical [Kripke] |
22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
20224 | Sensation prepares the way for intellectual knowledge, which needs the virtues of reason [Aquinas] |
1860 | Knowledge may be based on senses, but we needn't sense all our knowledge [Aquinas] |
4948 | Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything [Kripke] |
22109 | The fullest knowledge places a conclusion within an accurate theory [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
4958 | Identities like 'heat is molecule motion' are necessary (in the highest degree), not contingent [Kripke] |
11198 | Definition of essence makes things understandable [Aquinas] |
4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
22107 | Sensations are transmitted to 'internal senses' in the brain, chiefly to 'phantasia' and 'imagination' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
9098 | Mental activity combines what we sense with imagination of what is not present [Aquinas] |
9092 | Abstracting A from B generates truth, as long as the connection is not denied [Aquinas] |
9093 | We understand the general nature of things by ignoring individual peculiarities [Aquinas] |
9097 | The mind abstracts generalities from images, but also uses images for understanding [Aquinas] |
9095 | Very general ideas (being, oneness, potentiality) can be abstracted from thought matter in general [Aquinas] |
9099 | Particular instances come first, and (pace Plato) generalisations are abstracted from them [Aquinas] |
10508 | Species are abstracted from appearances by ignoring individual conditions [Aquinas] |
22111 | Aquinas attributes freedom to decisions and judgements, and not to the will alone [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
1855 | If we saw something as totally and utterly good, we would be compelled to will it [Aquinas] |
1856 | Nothing can be willed except what is good, but good is very varied, and so choices are unpredictable [Aquinas] |
1862 | However habituated you are, given time to ponder you can go against a habit [Aquinas] |
1849 | Since will is a reasoning power, it can entertain opposites, so it is not compelled to embrace one of them [Aquinas] |
1861 | The will is not compelled to move, even if pleasant things are set before it [Aquinas] |
1853 | Because the will moves by examining alternatives, it doesn't compel itself to will [Aquinas] |
1854 | We must admit that when the will is not willing something, the first movement to will must come from outside the will [Aquinas] |
22105 | The human intellectual soul is an incorporeal, subsistent principle [Aquinas] |
20700 | Without God's influence every operation would stop, so God causes everything [Aquinas] |
4967 | It seems logically possible to have the pain brain state without the actual pain [Kripke] |
9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
7430 | Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong on Kripke] |
7867 | If consciousness could separate from brain, then it cannot be identical with brain [Kripke, by Papineau] |
3228 | Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful [Kripke, by Rey] |
5832 | Identity must be necessary, but pain isn't necessarily a brain state, so they aren't identical [Kripke, by Schwartz,SP] |
4968 | Identity theorists seem committed to no-brain-event-no-pain, and vice versa, which seems wrong [Kripke] |
9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
22108 | First grasp what it is, then its essential features; judgement is their compounding and division [Aquinas] |
19271 | No rule can be fully explained [Kripke] |
19269 | 'Quus' means the same as 'plus' if the ingredients are less than 57; otherwise it just produces 5 [Kripke] |
16383 | Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke] |
10503 | We abstract forms from appearances, and acquire knowledge of immaterial things [Aquinas] |
10509 | Understanding consists entirely of grasping abstracted species [Aquinas] |
10506 | Mathematics can be abstracted from sensible matter, and from individual intelligible matter [Aquinas] |
9094 | Mathematical objects abstract both from perceived matter, and from particular substance [Aquinas] |
10505 | We can just think of an apple's colour, because the apple is not part of the colour's nature [Aquinas] |
10504 | Abstracting either treats something as separate, or thinks of it separately [Aquinas] |
10507 | Numbers and shapes are abstracted by ignoring their sensible qualities [Aquinas] |
9096 | The mind must produce by its own power an image of the individual species [Aquinas] |
7305 | Kripke's Wittgenstein says meaning 'vanishes into thin air' [Kripke, by Miller,A] |
19270 | If you ask what is in your mind for following the addition rule, meaning just seems to vanish [Kripke] |
17874 | Kripke has a definitional account of kinds, but not of naming [Almog on Kripke] |
16394 | Kripke derives accounts of reference and proper names from assumptions about worlds and essences [Stalnaker on Kripke] |
5822 | The important cause is not between dubbing and current use, but between the item and the speaker's information [Evans on Kripke] |
17033 | We may refer through a causal chain, but still change what is referred to [Kripke] |
4689 | Kripke makes reference a largely social matter, external to the mind of the speaker [Kripke, by McGinn] |
17504 | Kripke's theory is important because it gives a collective account of reference [Kripke, by Putnam] |
17035 | We refer through the community, going back to the original referent [Kripke] |
4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
16988 | Descriptive reference shows how to refer, how to identify two things, and how to challenge existence [Kripke, by PG] |
17029 | It can't be necessary that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him [Kripke] |
17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
11206 | The mind constructs complete attributions, based on the unified elements of the real world [Aquinas] |
11076 | Community implies assertability-conditions rather than truth-conditions semantics [Kripke, by Hanna] |
14893 | Rigid designation creates a puzzle - why do some necessary truths appear to be contingent? [Kripke, by Maciŕ/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
11075 | The sceptical rule-following paradox is the basis of the private language argument [Kripke, by Hanna] |
1847 | The will must aim at happiness, but can choose the means [Aquinas] |
1857 | We don't have to will even perfect good, because we can choose not to think of it [Aquinas] |
1846 | The will can only want what it thinks is good [Aquinas] |
23180 | The will is the rational appetite [Aquinas] |
1850 | Without free will not only is ethical action meaningless, but also planning, commanding, praising and blaming [Aquinas] |
22112 | For humans good is accordance with reason, and bad is contrary to reason [Aquinas] |
22494 | We must know the end, know that it is the end, and know how to attain it [Aquinas] |
1851 | Good applies to goals, just as truth applies to ideas in the mind [Aquinas] |
23181 | All acts of virtue relate to justice, which is directed towards the common good [Aquinas] |
8009 | Aquinas wanted, not to escape desire, but to transform it for moral ends [Aquinas, by MacIntyre] |
23182 | Legal justice is supreme, because it directs the other virtues to the common good [Aquinas] |
22399 | Temperance prevents our passions from acting against reason [Aquinas] |
23177 | Justice directs our relations with others, because it denotes a kind of equality [Aquinas] |
23179 | People differ in their social degrees, and a particular type of right applies to each [Aquinas] |
23174 | Natural law is a rational creature's participation in eternal law [Aquinas] |
22113 | Right and wrong actions pertain to natural law, as perceived by practical reason [Aquinas] |
22114 | Tyrannical laws are irrational, and so not really laws [Aquinas] |
7291 | For Aquinas a war must be in a just cause, have proper authority, and aim at good [Aquinas, by Grayling] |
5508 | Aquinas says a fertilized egg is not human, and has no immortal soul [Aquinas, by Martin/Barresi] |
16687 | Bodies are three-dimensional substances [Aquinas] |
17056 | Terms for natural kinds are very close to proper names [Kripke] |
4963 | The properties that fix reference are contingent, the properties involving meaning are necessary [Kripke] |
17053 | Gold's atomic number might not be 79, but if it is, could non-79 stuff be gold? [Kripke] |
4964 | 'Cats are animals' has turned out to be a necessary truth [Kripke] |
6765 | Nominal essence may well be neither necessary nor sufficient for a natural kind [Kripke, by Bird] |
11207 | A cause can exist without its effect, but the effect cannot exist without its cause [Aquinas] |
1859 | Even a sufficient cause doesn't compel its effect, because interference could interrupt the process [Aquinas] |
9387 | The scientific discovery (if correct) that gold has atomic number 79 is a necessary truth [Kripke] |
17054 | Scientific discoveries about gold are necessary truths [Kripke] |
17057 | Once we've found that heat is molecular motion, then that's what it is, in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
4965 | Science searches basic structures in search of essences [Kripke] |
15202 | Eternity coexists with passing time, as the centre of a circle coexists with its circumference [Aquinas] |
17050 | Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them [Kripke] |
17051 | The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances [Kripke] |
17049 | 'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough [Kripke] |
23178 | Divine law commands some things because they are good, while others are good because commanded [Aquinas] |
21251 | We can't know God's essence, so his existence can't be self-evident for us [Aquinas] |
5614 | If you assume that there must be a necessary being, you can't say which being has this quality [Kant on Aquinas] |
21269 | Way 1: the infinite chain of potential-to-actual movement has to have a first mover [Aquinas] |
21270 | Way 2: no effect without a cause, and this cannot go back to infinity, so there is First Cause [Aquinas] |
21271 | Way 3: contingent beings eventually vanish, so continuity needs a necessary being [Aquinas] |
21272 | Way 4: the source of all qualities is their maximum, so something (God) causes all perfections [Aquinas] |
5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |
21273 | Way 5: mindless things act towards an obvious end, so there is an intelligent director [Aquinas] |
20211 | Life aims at the Beatific Vision - of perfect happiness, and revealed truth [Aquinas, by Zagzebski] |
22106 | Aquinas saw angels as separated forms, rather than as made of 'spiritual matter' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
16711 | Heretics should be eradicated like wolves [Aquinas] |
23306 | Humans have a non-physical faculty of reason, so they can be immortal [Aquinas, by Sorabji] |
1863 | If the soul achieves well-being in another life, it doesn't follow that I do [Aquinas] |
4412 | Those in bliss have their happiness increased by seeing the damned punished [Aquinas] |
21266 | God does not exist, because He is infinite and good, and so no evil should be discoverable [Aquinas] |
21274 | It is part of God's supreme goodness that He brings good even out of evil [Aquinas] |