116 ideas
1887 | You cannot divide anything into many parts, because after the first division you are no longer dividing the original [Sext.Empiricus] |
22764 | Ordinary speech is not exact about what is true; we say we are digging a well before the well exists [Sext.Empiricus] |
22752 | Reasoning is impossible without a preconception [Sext.Empiricus] |
1885 | Proof moves from agreed premises to a non-evident inference [Sext.Empiricus] |
23000 | Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller] |
6021 | It is only when we say a proposition that we speak truly or falsely [Sext.Empiricus] |
15375 | If terms change their designations in different states, they are functions from states to objects [Fitting] |
15376 | Intensional logic adds a second type of quantification, over intensional objects, or individual concepts [Fitting] |
15378 | Awareness logic adds the restriction of an awareness function to epistemic logic [Fitting] |
15379 | Justication logics make explicit the reasons for mathematical truth in proofs [Fitting] |
11026 | Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting] |
12196 | A valid hypothetical syllogism is 'that which does not begin with a truth and end with a falsehood' [Sext.Empiricus] |
6020 | 'Man is a rational mortal animal' is equivalent to 'if something is a man, that thing is a rational mortal animal' [Sext.Empiricus] |
11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
1902 | Since Socrates either died when he was alive (a contradiction) or died when he was dead (meaningless), he didn't die [Sext.Empiricus] |
23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
22744 | Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus] |
22762 | Some properties are inseparable from a thing, such as the length, breadth and depth of a body [Sext.Empiricus] |
23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
15377 | Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting] |
1889 | If an argument has an absurd conclusion, we should not assent to the absurdity, but avoid the absurd argument [Sext.Empiricus] |
1871 | Whether honey is essentially sweet may be doubted, as it is a matter of judgement rather than appearance [Sext.Empiricus] |
1883 | How can the intellect know if sensation is reliable if it doesn't directly see external objects? [Sext.Empiricus] |
22748 | Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus] |
1890 | We distinguish ambiguities by seeing what is useful [Sext.Empiricus] |
22759 | Fools, infants and madmen may speak truly, but do not know [Sext.Empiricus] |
20795 | Some things are their own criterion, such as straightness, a set of scales, or light [Sext.Empiricus] |
22760 | Madmen are reliable reporters of what appears to them [Sext.Empiricus] |
1870 | The basis of scepticism is the claim that every proposition has an equal opposing proposition [Sext.Empiricus] |
1882 | The necks of doves appear different in colour depending on the angle of viewing [Sext.Empiricus] |
1881 | The same oar seems bent in water and straight when out of it [Sext.Empiricus] |
1873 | If we press the side of an eyeball, objects appear a different shape [Sext.Empiricus] |
1872 | The same tower appears round from a distance, but square close at hand [Sext.Empiricus] |
20794 | How can sceptics show there is no criterion? Weak without, contradiction with [Sext.Empiricus] |
1874 | How can we judge between our impressions and those of other animals, when we ourselves are involved? [Sext.Empiricus] |
1880 | Some actions seem shameful when sober but not when drunk [Sext.Empiricus] |
1879 | Sickness is perfectly natural to the sick, so their natural perceptions should carry some weight [Sext.Empiricus] |
1878 | Water that seems lukewarm can seem very hot on inflamed skin [Sext.Empiricus] |
1877 | If we had no hearing or sight, we would assume no sound or sight exists, so there may be unsensed qualities [Sext.Empiricus] |
1876 | If we enjoy different things, presumably we receive different impressions [Sext.Empiricus] |
1911 | Even if all known nations agree on a practice, there may be unknown nations which disagree [Sext.Empiricus] |
1910 | With us it is shameful for men to wear earrings, but among Syrians it is considered noble [Sext.Empiricus] |
6026 | How can you investigate without some preconception of your object? [Sext.Empiricus] |
1886 | If you don't view every particular, you may miss the one which disproves your universal induction [Sext.Empiricus] |
22746 | If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus] |
22741 | The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus] |
1884 | If we utter three steps of a logical argument, they never exist together [Sext.Empiricus] |
22763 | We can only dream of a winged man if we have experienced men and some winged thing [Sext.Empiricus] |
22754 | Saying the good is useful or choiceworth or happiness-creating is not the good, but a feature of it [Sext.Empiricus] |
22755 | Like a warming fire, what is good by nature should be good for everyone [Sext.Empiricus] |
22756 | If a desire is itself desirable, then we shouldn't desire it, as achieving it destroys it [Sext.Empiricus] |
6032 | Right actions, once done, are those with a reasonable justification [Sext.Empiricus] |
1517 | The tektraktys (1+2+3+4=10) is the 'fount of ever-flowing nature' [Sext.Empiricus] |
23011 | Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller] |
1894 | Some say that causes are physical, some say not [Sext.Empiricus] |
23013 | The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller] |
23014 | If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller] |
1897 | Knowing an effect results from a cause means knowing that the cause belongs with the effect, which is circular [Sext.Empiricus] |
1898 | Cause can't exist before effect, or exist at the same time, so it doesn't exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
1896 | If there were no causes then everything would have been randomly produced by everything [Sext.Empiricus] |
1895 | Causes are either equal to the effect, or they link equally with other causes, or they contribute slightly [Sext.Empiricus] |
23015 | The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller] |
23016 | Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller] |
1900 | If time and place are infinitely divided, it becomes impossible for movement ever to begin [Sext.Empiricus] |
1901 | If all atoms, times and places are the same, everything should move with equal velocity [Sext.Empiricus] |
22747 | A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus] |
1899 | Does the original self-mover push itself from behind, or pull itself from in front? [Sext.Empiricus] |
23009 | There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller] |
23002 | In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller] |
1903 | If motion and rest are abolished, so is time [Sext.Empiricus] |
22988 | The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller] |
22991 | How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller] |
22992 | If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller] |
22994 | Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller] |
22998 | How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller] |
23017 | Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller] |
23023 | How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller] |
22995 | Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller] |
1904 | Time must be unlimited, but past and present can't be non-existent, and can't be now, so time does not exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
22993 | For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller] |
23001 | The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller] |
22999 | It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller] |
22749 | Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus] |
22986 | The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller] |
22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |
23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |
23003 | Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller] |
23004 | The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller] |
23005 | The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller] |
23006 | Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller] |
23010 | We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller] |
22989 | Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller] |
23020 | If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller] |
23022 | Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller] |
22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |
22750 | Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus] |
1905 | How can time be divisible if we can't compare one length of time with another? [Sext.Empiricus] |
22742 | Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus] |
22751 | If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus] |
22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |
22730 | All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus] |
22739 | God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus] |
1891 | How can we agree on the concept of God, unless we agree on his substance or form or place? [Sext.Empiricus] |
22738 | The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus] |
22734 | God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus] |
22736 | God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus] |
22740 | God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus] |
1892 | The existence of God can't be self-evident or everyone would have agreed on it, so it needs demonstration [Sext.Empiricus] |
22735 | The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus] |
22732 | The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus] |
22728 | Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus] |
22737 | An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus] |
22731 | It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus] |
1893 | If God foresaw evil he would presumably prevent it, and if he only foresees some things, why those things? [Sext.Empiricus] |