64 ideas
8013 | In the Reformation, morality became unconditional but irrational, individually autonomous, and secular [MacIntyre] |
8021 | The Levellers and the Diggers mark a turning point in the history of morality [MacIntyre] |
8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
14611 | Metaphysics should avoid talk of past, present or future [Smart] |
17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
1403 | A rational donkey would starve to death between two totally identical piles of hay [Buridan, by PG] |
16678 | Without magnitude a thing would retain its parts, but they would have no location [Buridan] |
16793 | A thing is (less properly) the same over time if each part is succeeded by another [Buridan] |
16726 | Why can't we deduce secondary qualities from primary ones, if they cause them? [Buridan] |
8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
17073 | I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart] |
10356 | Relativism can be seen as about the rationality of different cultural traditions [MacIntyre, by Kusch] |
16577 | Induction is not demonstration, because not all of the instances can be observed [Buridan] |
8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
16576 | Science is based on induction, for general truths about fire, rhubarb and magnets [Buridan] |
17077 | The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart] |
17078 | Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart] |
17074 | Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart] |
17076 | Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart] |
17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart] |
17071 | An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart] |
17062 | If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart] |
17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
8006 | When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre] |
21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
8002 | Sophists don't distinguish a person outside one social order from someone outside all order [MacIntyre] |
8012 | The value/fact logical gulf is misleading, because social facts involve values [MacIntyre] |
8005 | 'Happiness' is a bad translation of 'eudaimonia', which includes both behaving and faring well [MacIntyre] |
8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
8001 | 'Dikaiosune' is justice, but also fairness and personal integrity [MacIntyre] |
8023 | My duties depend on my identity, which depends on my social relations [MacIntyre] |
22405 | Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart] |
8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
22404 | Any group interested in ethics must surely have a sentiment of generalised benevolence [Smart] |
8022 | I am naturally free if I am not tied to anyone by a contract [MacIntyre] |
8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
23080 | Liberals debate how conservative or radical to be, but don't question their basics [MacIntyre] |
8031 | Fans of natural rights or laws can't agree on what the actual rights or laws are [MacIntyre] |
14613 | Special relativity won't determine a preferred frame, but we can pick one externally [Smart] |
17063 | Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart] |
14615 | If time flows, then 'how fast does it flow?' is a tricky question [Smart] |
14614 | The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart] |
8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
8008 | The Bible is a story about God in which humans are incidental characters [MacIntyre] |