40 ideas
| 5988 | Anaximander produced the first philosophy book (and maybe the first book) [Anaximander, by Bodnár] |
| 1606 | You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik] |
| 1595 | Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik] |
| 4739 | In "if and only if" (iff), "if" expresses the sufficient condition, and "only if" the necessary condition [Engel] |
| 1571 | 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik] |
| 1572 | In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik] |
| 1573 | The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik] |
| 1592 | Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik] |
| 1593 | Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik] |
| 1603 | Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik] |
| 1598 | We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik] |
| 1584 | Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik] |
| 1591 | Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik] |
| 1599 | Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik] |
| 1496 | The earth is stationary, because it is in the centre, and has no more reason to move one way than another [Anaximander, by Aristotle] |
| 4737 | Are truth-bearers propositions, or ideas/beliefs, or sentences/utterances? [Engel] |
| 4750 | The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p' [Engel] |
| 4744 | We can't explain the corresponding structure of the world except by referring to our thoughts [Engel] |
| 4738 | The coherence theory says truth is an internal relationship between groups of truth-bearers [Engel] |
| 4745 | Any coherent set of beliefs can be made more coherent by adding some false beliefs [Engel] |
| 4753 | Deflationism seems to block philosophers' main occupation, asking metatheoretical questions [Engel] |
| 4755 | Deflationism cannot explain why we hold beliefs for reasons [Engel] |
| 4751 | Maybe there is no more to be said about 'true' than there is about the function of 'and' in logic [Engel] |
| 4752 | Deflationism must reduce bivalence ('p is true or false') to excluded middle ('p or not-p') [Engel] |
| 14874 | Anaximander saw the contradiction in the world - that its own qualities destroy it [Anaximander, by Nietzsche] |
| 1605 | Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik] |
| 4762 | The Humean theory of motivation is that beliefs may be motivators as well as desires [Engel] |
| 4754 | Our beliefs are meant to fit the world (i.e. be true), where we want the world to fit our desires [Engel] |
| 4763 | 'Evidentialists' say, and 'voluntarists' deny, that we only believe on the basis of evidence [Engel] |
| 4746 | Pragmatism is better understood as a theory of belief than as a theory of truth [Engel] |
| 4764 | We cannot directly control our beliefs, but we can control the causes of our involuntary beliefs [Engel] |
| 1577 | Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik] |
| 4759 | Mental states as functions are second-order properties, realised by first-order physical properties [Engel] |
| 1596 | Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik] |
| 1578 | If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik] |
| 1495 | Anaximander introduced the idea that the first principle and element of things was the Boundless [Anaximander, by Simplicius] |
| 405 | The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless [Anaximander] |
| 13222 | The Boundless cannot exist on its own, and must have something contrary to it [Aristotle on Anaximander] |
| 404 | Things begin and end in the Unlimited, and are balanced over time according to justice [Anaximander] |
| 1746 | The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable [Anaximander, by Diog. Laertius] |