59 ideas
| 23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| 23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| 23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
| 23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
| 23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
| 23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
| 23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
| 23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
| 23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
| 23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
| 23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| 7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
| 7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
| 23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
| 7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
| 7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
| 7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
| 7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
| 23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
| 23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
| 7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |