103 ideas
| 19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
| 23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
| 19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
| 19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
| 19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
| 19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
| 19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
| 19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
| 19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
| 19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
| 19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| 23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
| 19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
| 19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
| 19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
| 10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
| 10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| 10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
| 10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
| 10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
| 10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
| 10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| 23708 | Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG] |
| 23709 | Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23707 | Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23714 | Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23711 | A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23712 | Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23698 | Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23699 | 'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23700 | A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23701 | A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23702 | A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23703 | Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23704 | We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23710 | Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| 12900 | How could 'S knows he has hands' not have a fixed content? [Bach] |
| 12901 | If contextualism is right, knowledge sentences are baffling out of their context [Bach] |
| 12902 | Sceptics aren't changing the meaning of 'know', but claiming knowing is tougher than we think [Bach] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| 10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
| 10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
| 10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
| 10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
| 10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
| 10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
| 10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
| 10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
| 10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
| 10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
| 10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
| 10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
| 10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
| 10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
| 19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
| 23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
| 19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
| 19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
| 19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
| 19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
| 19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
| 19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
| 19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
| 23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
| 19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
| 19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
| 23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
| 19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
| 19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
| 19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
| 19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
| 19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
| 19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
| 19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
| 19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
| 23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
| 19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
| 23706 | Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
| 19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
| 19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |