101 ideas
7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
21970 | Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte] |
7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
15038 | Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault] |
7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
6912 | For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason' [Fichte, by Feuerbach] |
21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
23247 | The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason [Fichte] |
23232 | Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general [Fichte] |
15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |
15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
23227 | Each object has a precise number of properties, each to a precise degree [Fichte] |
23228 | The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte] |
22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
15037 | Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault] |
6346 | The main epistemological theories are foundationalist, coherence, probabilistic and reliabilist [Pollock/Cruz] |
6351 | Most people now agree that our reasoning proceeds defeasibly, rather than deductively [Pollock/Cruz] |
6374 | To believe maximum truths, believe everything; to have infallible beliefs, believe nothing [Pollock/Cruz] |
6355 | Direct realism says justification is partly a function of pure perceptual states, not of beliefs [Pollock/Cruz] |
6359 | Phenomenalism offered conclusive perceptual knowledge, but conclusive reasons no longer seem essential [Pollock/Cruz] |
22062 | Mental presentation are not empirical, but concern the strivings of the self [Fichte] |
22015 | The thing-in-itself is an empty dream [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
21973 | Fichte believed in things-in-themselves [Fichte, by Moore,AW] |
21914 | We can deduce experience from self-consciousness, without the thing-in-itself [Fichte] |
23241 | I am myself, but not the external object; so I only sense myself, and not the object [Fichte] |
22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
20951 | The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I [Fichte, by Bowie] |
21964 | Reason arises from freedom, so philosophy starts from the self, and not from the laws of nature [Fichte] |
21968 | Abandon the thing-in-itself; things only exist in relation to our thinking [Fichte] |
21966 | Self-consciousness is the basis of knowledge, and knowing something is knowing myself [Fichte] |
21967 | There is nothing to say about anything which is outside my consciousness [Fichte] |
21969 | Awareness of reality comes from the free activity of consciousness [Fichte] |
6366 | Perception causes beliefs in us, without inference or justification [Pollock/Cruz] |
23231 | I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference [Fichte] |
6362 | Sense evidence is not beliefs, because they are about objective properties, not about appearances [Pollock/Cruz] |
23246 | Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte] |
6371 | Bayesian epistemology is Bayes' Theorem plus the 'simple rule' (believe P if it is probable) [Pollock/Cruz] |
6373 | Internalism says if anything external varies, the justifiability of the belief does not vary [Pollock/Cruz] |
6353 | People rarely have any basic beliefs, and never enough for good foundations [Pollock/Cruz] |
6361 | Foundationalism requires self-justification, not incorrigibility [Pollock/Cruz] |
23245 | Knowledge can't be its own foundation; there has to be regress of higher and higher authorities [Fichte] |
6357 | Reason cannot be an ultimate foundation, because rational justification requires prior beliefs [Pollock/Cruz] |
6363 | Foundationalism is wrong, because either all beliefs are prima facie justified, or none are [Pollock/Cruz] |
6365 | Negative coherence theories do not require reasons, so have no regress problem [Pollock/Cruz] |
6354 | Coherence theories fail, because they can't accommodate perception as the basis of knowledge [Pollock/Cruz] |
6367 | Coherence theories isolate justification from the world [Pollock/Cruz] |
6370 | Externalism comes as 'probabilism' (probability of truth) and 'reliabilism' (probability of good cognitive process) [Pollock/Cruz] |
6358 | One belief may cause another, without being the basis for the second belief [Pollock/Cruz] |
6364 | We can't start our beliefs from scratch, because we wouldn't know where to start [Pollock/Cruz] |
7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
6352 | Enumerative induction gives a universal judgement, while statistical induction gives a proportion [Pollock/Cruz] |
6372 | Since every tautology has a probability of 1, should we believe all tautologies? [Pollock/Cruz] |
6360 | Scientific confirmation is best viewed as inference to the best explanation [Pollock/Cruz] |
23242 | Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte] |
22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |
21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
23240 | We can't know by sight or hearing without realising that we are doing so [Fichte] |
22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
23243 | Consciousness of external things is always accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of self [Fichte] |
22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
22063 | Effective individuals must posit a specific material body for themselves [Fichte] |
7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
23244 | Forming purposes is absolutely free, and produces something from nothing [Fichte] |
23237 | The capacity for freedom is above the laws of nature, with its own power of purpose and will [Fichte] |
23235 | I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte] |
21965 | Spinoza could not actually believe his determinism, because living requires free will [Fichte] |
23230 | Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte] |
22235 | Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault] |
22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
23233 | The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces [Fichte] |
21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
23234 | I cannot change the nature which has been determined for me [Fichte] |
23239 | The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature [Fichte] |
22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
23238 | If life lacks love it becomes destruction [Fichte] |
7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
23236 | Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature [Fichte] |
21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
15040 | Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault] |
15041 | Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault] |
8991 | Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton] |
7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
22236 | The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault] |
21947 | Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting] |
21946 | Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
15039 | History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault] |
23229 | Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything [Fichte] |
22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |