277 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| 11300 | Agathon: good [PG] |
| 11301 | Aisthesis: perception, sensation, consciousness [PG] |
| 11302 | Aitia / aition: cause, explanation [PG] |
| 11303 | Akrasia: lack of control, weakness of will [PG] |
| 11304 | Aletheia: truth [PG] |
| 11305 | Anamnesis: recollection, remembrance [PG] |
| 11306 | Ananke: necessity [PG] |
| 11307 | Antikeimenon: object [PG] |
| 11375 | Apatheia: unemotional [PG] |
| 11308 | Apeiron: the unlimited, indefinite [PG] |
| 11376 | Aphairesis: taking away, abstraction [PG] |
| 11309 | Apodeixis: demonstration [PG] |
| 11310 | Aporia: puzzle, question, anomaly [PG] |
| 11311 | Arche: first principle, the basic [PG] |
| 11312 | Arete: virtue, excellence [PG] |
| 11313 | Chronismos: separation [PG] |
| 11314 | Diairesis: division [PG] |
| 11315 | Dialectic: dialectic, discussion [PG] |
| 11316 | Dianoia: intellection [cf. Noesis] [PG] |
| 11317 | Diaphora: difference [PG] |
| 11318 | Dikaiosune: moral goodness, justice [PG] |
| 11319 | Doxa: opinion, belief [PG] |
| 11320 | Dunamis: faculty, potentiality, capacity [PG] |
| 11321 | Eidos: form, idea [PG] |
| 11322 | Elenchos: elenchus, interrogation [PG] |
| 11323 | Empeiron: experience [PG] |
| 11324 | Energeia: employment, actuality, power? [PG] |
| 11325 | Enkrateia: control [PG] |
| 11326 | Entelecheia: entelechy, having an end [PG] |
| 11327 | Epagoge: induction, explanation [PG] |
| 11328 | Episteme: knowledge, understanding [PG] |
| 11329 | Epithumia: appetite [PG] |
| 11330 | Ergon: function [PG] |
| 11331 | Eristic: polemic, disputation [PG] |
| 11332 | Eros: love [PG] |
| 11333 | Eudaimonia: flourishing, happiness, fulfilment [PG] |
| 11334 | Genos: type, genus [PG] |
| 11335 | Hexis: state, habit [PG] |
| 11336 | Horismos: definition [PG] |
| 11337 | Hule: matter [PG] |
| 11338 | Hupokeimenon: subject, underlying thing [cf. Tode ti] [PG] |
| 11339 | Kalos / kalon: beauty, fineness, nobility [PG] |
| 11340 | Kath' hauto: in virtue of itself, essentially [PG] |
| 11341 | Kinesis: movement, process [PG] |
| 11342 | Kosmos: order, universe [PG] |
| 11343 | Logos: reason, account, word [PG] |
| 11344 | Meson: the mean [PG] |
| 11345 | Metechein: partaking, sharing [PG] |
| 11377 | Mimesis: imitation, fine art [PG] |
| 11346 | Morphe: form [PG] |
| 11347 | Noesis: intellection, rational thought [cf. Dianoia] [PG] |
| 11348 | Nomos: convention, law, custom [PG] |
| 11349 | Nous: intuition, intellect, understanding [PG] |
| 11350 | Orexis: desire [PG] |
| 11351 | Ousia: substance, (primary) being, [see 'Prote ousia'] [PG] |
| 11352 | Pathos: emotion, affection, property [PG] |
| 11353 | Phantasia: imagination [PG] |
| 11354 | Philia: friendship [PG] |
| 11355 | Philosophia: philosophy, love of wisdom [PG] |
| 11356 | Phronesis: prudence, practical reason, common sense [PG] |
| 11357 | Physis: nature [PG] |
| 11358 | Praxis: action, activity [PG] |
| 11359 | Prote ousia: primary being [PG] |
| 11360 | Psuche: mind, soul, life [PG] |
| 11361 | Sophia: wisdom [PG] |
| 11362 | Sophrosune: moderation, self-control [PG] |
| 11363 | Stoicheia: elements [PG] |
| 11364 | Sullogismos: deduction, syllogism [PG] |
| 11365 | Techne: skill, practical knowledge [PG] |
| 11366 | Telos: purpose, end [PG] |
| 11367 | Theoria: contemplation [PG] |
| 11368 | Theos: god [PG] |
| 11369 | Ti esti: what-something-is, essence [PG] |
| 11370 | Timoria: vengeance, punishment [PG] |
| 11371 | To ti en einai: essence, what-it-is-to-be [PG] |
| 11372 | To ti estin: essence [PG] |
| 11373 | Tode ti: this-such, subject of predication [cf. hupokeimenon] [PG] |
| 11461 | 323 (roughly): Euclid wrote 'Elements', summarising all of geometry [PG] |
| 11390 | 1000 (roughly): Upanishads written (in Sanskrit); religious and philosophical texts [PG] |
| 11391 | 750 (roughly): the Book of Genesis written by Hebrew writers [PG] |
| 11392 | 586: eclipse of the sun on the coast of modern Turkey was predicted by Thales of Miletus [PG] |
| 11395 | 570: Anaximander flourished in Miletus [PG] |
| 11396 | 563: the Buddha born in northern India [PG] |
| 11398 | 540: Lao Tzu wrote 'Tao Te Ching', the basis of Taoism [PG] |
| 11400 | 529: Pythagoras created his secretive community at Croton in Sicily [PG] |
| 11403 | 500: Heraclitus flourishes at Ephesus, in modern Turkey [PG] |
| 11404 | 496: Confucius travels widely, persuading rulers to be more moral [PG] |
| 11408 | 472: Empedocles persuades his city (Acragas in Sicily) to become a democracy [PG] |
| 11412 | 450 (roughly): Parmenides and Zeno visit Athens from Italy [PG] |
| 11414 | 445: Protagoras helps write laws for the new colony of Thurii [PG] |
| 11417 | 436 (roughly): Anaxagoras is tried for impiety, and expelled from Athens [PG] |
| 11535 | 170 (roughly): Marcus Aurelius wrote his private stoic meditations [PG] |
| 11537 | -200 (roughly): Sextus Empiricus wrote a series of books on scepticism [PG] |
| 11541 | 263: Porphyry began to study with Plotinus in Rome [PG] |
| 11545 | 310: Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire [PG] |
| 11549 | 387: Ambrose converts Augustine to Christianity [PG] |
| 11555 | 523: Boethius imprisoned at Pavia, and begins to write [PG] |
| 11557 | 529: the emperor Justinian closes all the philosophy schools in Athens [PG] |
| 11421 | 427: Gorgias visited Athens as ambassador for Leontini [PG] |
| 11425 | 399: Socrates executed (with Plato absent through ill health) [PG] |
| 11432 | 387 (roughly): Plato returned to Athens, and founded the Academy [PG] |
| 11433 | 387 (roughly): Aristippus the Elder founder a hedonist school at Cyrene [PG] |
| 11440 | 367: the teenaged Aristotle came to study at the Academy [PG] |
| 11443 | 360 (roughly): Diogenes of Sinope lives in a barrel in central Athens [PG] |
| 11445 | 347: death of Plato [PG] |
| 11454 | 343: Aristotle becomes tutor to 13 year old Alexander (the Great) [PG] |
| 11456 | 335: Arisotle founded his school at the Lyceum in Athens [PG] |
| 11459 | 330 (roughly): Chuang Tzu wrote his Taoist book [PG] |
| 11465 | 322: Aristotle retired to Chalcis, and died there [PG] |
| 11468 | 307 (roughly): Epicurus founded his school at the Garden in Athens [PG] |
| 11470 | 301 (roughly): Zeno of Citium founded Stoicism at the Stoa Poikile in Athens [PG] |
| 11483 | 261: Cleanthes replaced Zeno as head of the Stoa [PG] |
| 11486 | 229 (roughly): Chrysippus replaced Cleanthes has head of the Stoa [PG] |
| 11492 | 157 (roughly): Carneades became head of the Academy [PG] |
| 11509 | 85: most philosophical activity moves to Alexandria [PG] |
| 11513 | 78: Cicero visited the stoic school on Rhodes [PG] |
| 11516 | 60 (roughly): Lucretius wrote his Latin poem on epicureanism [PG] |
| 11528 | 65: Seneca forced to commit suicide by Nero [PG] |
| 11531 | 80: the discourses of the stoic Epictetus are written down [PG] |
| 11564 | 1090: Anselm publishes his proof of the existence of God [PG] |
| 11558 | 622 (roughly): Mohammed writes the Koran [PG] |
| 11559 | 642: Arabs close the philosophy schools in Alexandria [PG] |
| 11560 | 910 (roughly): Al-Farabi wrote Arabic commentaries on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11562 | 1015 (roughly): Ibn Sina (Avicenna) writes a book on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11566 | 1115: Abelard is the chief logic teacher in Paris [PG] |
| 11573 | 1166: Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11581 | 1266: Aquinas began writing 'Summa Theologica' [PG] |
| 11586 | 1280: after his death, the teaching of Aquinas becomes official Dominican doctrine [PG] |
| 11591 | 1328: William of Ockham decides the Pope is a heretic, and moves to Munich [PG] |
| 17916 | 1347: the Church persecutes philosophical heresies [PG] |
| 11593 | 1470: Marsilio Ficino founds a Platonic Academy in Florence [PG] |
| 11596 | 1513: Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' [PG] |
| 11599 | 1543: Copernicus publishes his heliocentric view of the solar system [PG] |
| 11601 | 1580: Montaigne publishes his essays [PG] |
| 11607 | 1600: Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome [PG] |
| 11613 | 1619: Descartes's famous day of meditation inside a stove [PG] |
| 11614 | 1620: Bacon publishes 'Novum Organum' [PG] |
| 11619 | 1633: Galileo convicted of heresy by the Inquisition [PG] |
| 11623 | 1641: Descartes publishes his 'Meditations' [PG] |
| 11626 | 1650: death of Descartes, in Stockholm [PG] |
| 11627 | 1651: Hobbes publishes 'Leviathan' [PG] |
| 11633 | 1662: the Port Royal Logic is published [PG] |
| 11634 | 1665: Spinoza writes his 'Ethics' [PG] |
| 11643 | 1676: Leibniz settled as librarian to the Duke of Brunswick [PG] |
| 11649 | 1687: Newton publishes his 'Principia Mathematica' [PG] |
| 11652 | 1690: Locke publishes his 'Essay' [PG] |
| 11654 | 1697: Bayle publishes his 'Dictionary' [PG] |
| 11659 | 1713: Berkeley publishes his 'Three Dialogues' [PG] |
| 11666 | 1734: Voltaire publishes his 'Philosophical Letters' [PG] |
| 11667 | 1739: Hume publishes his 'Treatise' [PG] |
| 11675 | 1762: Rousseau publishes his 'Social Contract' [PG] |
| 11682 | 1781: Kant publishes his 'Critique of Pure Reason' [PG] |
| 11683 | 1785: Reid publishes his essays defending common sense [PG] |
| 11687 | 1798: the French Revolution [PG] |
| 11694 | 1807: Hegel publishes his 'Phenomenology of Spirit' [PG] |
| 11701 | 1818: Schopenhauer publishes his 'World as Will and Idea' [PG] |
| 11710 | 1840: Kierkegaard is writing extensively in Copenhagen [PG] |
| 11713 | 1843: Mill publishes his 'System of Logic' [PG] |
| 11715 | 1848: Marx and Engels publis the Communist Manifesto [PG] |
| 11717 | 1859: Darwin publishes his 'Origin of the Species' [PG] |
| 11721 | 1861: Mill publishes 'Utilitarianism' [PG] |
| 11724 | 1867: Marx begins publishing 'Das Kapital' [PG] |
| 11733 | 1879: Peirce taught for five years at Johns Hopkins University [PG] |
| 17907 | 1879: Frege invents predicate logic [PG] |
| 17909 | 1892: Frege's essay 'Sense and Reference' [PG] |
| 17908 | 1884: Frege publishes his 'Foundations of Arithmetic' [PG] |
| 11735 | 1885: Nietzsche completed 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' [PG] |
| 17911 | 1888: Dedekind publishes axioms for arithmetic [PG] |
| 11740 | 1890: James published 'Principles of Psychology' [PG] |
| 11742 | 1895 (roughly): Freud developed theories of the unconscious [PG] |
| 11745 | 1900: Husserl began developing Phenomenology [PG] |
| 17917 | 1953: Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' [PG] |
| 17919 | 1956: Place proposed mind-brain identity [PG] |
| 11804 | 1962: Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' [PG] |
| 17921 | 1967: Putnam proposed functionalism of the mind [PG] |
| 11808 | 1971: Rawls's 'A Theory of Justice' [PG] |
| 11810 | 1972: Kripke publishes 'Naming and Necessity' [PG] |
| 11813 | 1975: Singer publishes 'Animal Rights' [PG] |
| 17920 | 1975: Putnam published his Twin Earth example [PG] |
| 11820 | 1986: David Lewis publishes 'On the Plurality of Worlds' [PG] |
| 11746 | 1903: Moore published 'Principia Ethica' [PG] |
| 11747 | 1904: Dewey became professor at Columbia University [PG] |
| 17910 | 1908: Zermelo publishes axioms for set theory [PG] |
| 11752 | 1910: Russell and Whitehead begin publishing 'Principia Mathematica' [PG] |
| 11756 | 1912: Russell meets Wittgenstein in Cambridge [PG] |
| 11762 | 1921: Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' published [PG] |
| 11765 | 1927: Heidegger's 'Being and Time' published [PG] |
| 11768 | 1930: Frank Ramsey dies at 27 [PG] |
| 11770 | 1931: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems [PG] |
| 11773 | 1933: Tarski's theory of truth [PG] |
| 11783 | 1942: Camus published 'The Myth of Sisyphus' [PG] |
| 11784 | 1943: Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' [PG] |
| 11787 | 1945: Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception' [PG] |
| 17918 | 1947: Carnap published 'Meaning and Necessity' [PG] |
| 11794 | 1950: Quine's essay 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' [PG] |
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| 4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
| 1489 | Modern philosophy tends to be a theory-constructing extension of science, but there is also problem-solving [Nagel] |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| 4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
| 7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
| 7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
| 6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
| 4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
| 6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
| 17809 | Gödel showed that the syntactic approach to the infinite is of limited value [Kreisel] |
| 17810 | The study of mathematical foundations needs new non-mathematical concepts [Kreisel] |
| 4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| 24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
| 3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
| 3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| 3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| 3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| 1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| 3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| 3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| 3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
| 3288 | Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel] |
| 4883 | Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel] |
| 3287 | We can't be objective about experience [Nagel] |
| 7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
| 7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
| 4989 | Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel] |
| 4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
| 6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
| 6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
| 3284 | There is no one theory of how to act (or what to believe) [Nagel] |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| 3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
| 6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| 3282 | The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel] |
| 3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| 6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| 6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| 3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| 3278 | An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel] |
| 6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
| 3281 | The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel] |
| 3275 | Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel] |
| 3277 | In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel] |
| 3273 | Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel] |
| 3274 | Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel] |
| 6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
| 3276 | A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel] |
| 3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
| 17811 | The natural conception of points ducks the problem of naming or constructing each point [Kreisel] |
| 6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
| 3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |
| 3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |