375 ideas
21875 | The wisdom of a free man is a meditation on life, not on death [Spinoza] |
17230 | If we are not wholly wise, we should live by good rules and maxims [Spinoza] |
18450 | Philosophy has its own mode of death, by separating soul from body [Porphyry] |
18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
17200 | We must be careful to keep words distinct from ideas and images [Spinoza] |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
17194 | Reason only explains what is universal, so it is timeless, under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
4840 | Reason perceives things under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
19917 | Without reason and human help, human life is misery [Spinoza] |
17213 | In so far as men live according to reason, they will agree with one another [Spinoza] |
4819 | There is necessarily for each existent thing a cause why it should exist [Spinoza] |
4036 | What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver] |
16541 | All the intrinsic properties of a thing should be deducible from its definition [Spinoza] |
21864 | Truth is its own standard [Spinoza] |
8018 | Spinoza's life shows that love of truth which he proclaims as the highest value [MacIntyre on Spinoza] |
5641 | For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
15547 | Negative existentials have 'totality facts' as truthmakers [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
4816 | A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object [Spinoza] |
4742 | Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong] |
15544 | If what is actual might have been impossible, we need S4 modal logic [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
20309 | If our ideas are adequate, what follows from them is also adequate [Spinoza] |
17185 | Mathematics deals with the essences and properties of forms [Spinoza] |
17222 | The sum of its angles follows from a triangle's nature [Spinoza] |
17197 | The idea of a triangle involves truths about it, so those are part of its essence [Spinoza] |
18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
17174 | Outside the mind, there are just things and their properties [Spinoza] |
17176 | The more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has [Spinoza] |
17179 | There must always be a reason or cause why some triangle does or does not exist [Spinoza] |
17186 | Men say they prefer order, not realising that we imagine the order [Spinoza] |
18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
8507 | Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong] |
20127 | Laws of nature are universal, so everything must be understood through those laws [Spinoza] |
18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
7024 | Properties are universals, which are always instantiated [Armstrong, by Heil] |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
15550 | Properties are contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
17170 | An 'attribute' is what the intellect takes as constituting an essence [Spinoza] |
18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
9478 | Even if all properties are categorical, they may be denoted by dispositional predicates [Armstrong, by Bird] |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
17171 | A 'mode' is an aspect of a substance, and conceived through that substance [Spinoza] |
4034 | Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong] |
8535 | To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong] |
8537 | Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong] |
4444 | One moderate nominalist view says that properties and relations exist, but they are particulars [Armstrong] |
18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
8538 | Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong] |
4445 | If properties and relations are particulars, there is still the problem of how to classify and group them [Armstrong] |
18451 | The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry] |
17195 | Things persevere through a force which derives from God [Spinoza] |
17206 | The essence of a thing is its effort to persevere [Spinoza] |
18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
14330 | To be realists about dispositions, we can only discuss them through their categorical basis [Armstrong] |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
15034 | Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry] |
8506 | Particulars and properties are distinguishable, but too close to speak of a relation [Armstrong] |
4448 | Should we decide which universals exist a priori (through words), or a posteriori (through science)? [Armstrong] |
4032 | The problem of universals is how many particulars can all be of the same 'type' [Armstrong] |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
8539 | Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
10729 | Universals explain resemblance and causal power [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
4446 | It is claimed that some universals are not exemplified by any particular, so must exist separately [Armstrong] |
4442 | Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem [Armstrong] |
17192 | The 'universal' term 'man' is just imagining whatever is the same in a multitude of men [Spinoza] |
8505 | Refusal to explain why different tokens are of the same type is to be an ostrich [Armstrong] |
8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
4440 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' finds that in practice the construction of resemblance classes is hard [Armstrong] |
8532 | Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong] |
4439 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' says properties are resemblances between classes of particulars [Armstrong] |
4031 | It doesn't follow that because there is a predicate there must therefore exist a property [Armstrong] |
8530 | Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong] |
8536 | We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong] |
4431 | 'Predicate Nominalism' says that a 'universal' property is just a predicate applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
4433 | Concept and predicate nominalism miss out some predicates, and may be viciously regressive [Armstrong] |
4432 | 'Concept Nominalism' says a 'universal' property is just a mental concept applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
8531 | In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong] |
4436 | 'Class Nominalism' may explain properties if we stick to 'natural' sets, and ignore random ones [Armstrong] |
4434 | 'Class Nominalism' says that properties or kinds are merely membership of a set (e.g. of white things) [Armstrong] |
4435 | 'Class Nominalism' cannot explain co-extensive properties, or sets with random members [Armstrong] |
18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
4437 | 'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things [Armstrong] |
4438 | 'Mereological Nominalism' may work for whiteness, but it doesn't seem to work for squareness [Armstrong] |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
18459 | Diversity arises from the power of unity [Porphyry] |
17188 | A thing is unified if its parts produce a single effect [Spinoza] |
5639 | Spinoza implies that thought is impossible without the notion of substance [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
21857 | Substance is the power of self-actualisation [Spinoza, by Lord] |
4813 | Substance is that of which an independent conception can be formed [Spinoza] |
4828 | The essence of a thing is what is required for it to exist or be conceived [Spinoza] |
17187 | Essence gives existence and conception to things, and is inseparable from them [Spinoza] |
17191 | Nothing is essential if it is in every part, and is common to everything [Spinoza] |
17184 | All natures of things produce some effect [Spinoza] |
4869 | Experience does not teach us any essences of things [Spinoza] |
15753 | Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong] |
17205 | Only an external cause can destroy something [Spinoza] |
18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
10024 | The type-token distinction is the universal-particular distinction [Armstrong, by Hodes] |
10728 | A thing's self-identity can't be a universal, since we can know it a priori [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
17175 | There cannot be two substances with the same attributes [Spinoza] |
17173 | Two substances can't be the same if they have different attributes [Spinoza] |
17183 | Things are impossible if they imply contradiction, or their production lacks an external cause [Spinoza] |
15542 | All possibilities are recombinations of properties in the actual world [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
4299 | Contingency is an illusion, resulting from our inadequate understanding [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
4824 | We only call things 'contingent' in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge [Spinoza] |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
4839 | Reason naturally regards things as necessary, and only imagination considers them contingent [Spinoza] |
4822 | Divine nature makes all existence and operations necessary, and nothing is contingent [Spinoza] |
4743 | The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong] |
17182 | Necessity is in reference to essence or to cause [Spinoza] |
4818 | People who are ignorant of true causes imagine anything can change into anything else [Spinoza] |
20310 | Error does not result from imagining, but from lacking the evidence of impossibility [Spinoza] |
11003 | The best version of reductionist actualism around is Armstrong's combinatorial account [Armstrong, by Read] |
18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
17208 | A horse would be destroyed if it were changed into a man or an insect [Spinoza] |
17209 | A thing is contingent if nothing in its essence determines whether or not it exists [Spinoza] |
5640 | Spinoza's three levels of knowledge are perception/imagination, then principles, then intuitions [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
17211 | Understanding is the sole aim of reason, and the only profit for the mind [Spinoza] |
21801 | Unlike Descartes' atomism, Spinoza held a holistic view of belief [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
21863 | You only know you are certain of something when you actually are certain of it [Spinoza] |
17199 | A man who assents without doubt to a falsehood is not certain, but lacks a cause to make him waver [Spinoza] |
17193 | True ideas intrinsically involve the highest degree of certainty [Spinoza] |
5638 | 'I think' is useless, because it is contingent, and limited to the first person [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
6498 | Armstrong suggests secondary qualities are blurred primary qualities [Armstrong, by Robinson,H] |
7440 | Secondary qualities are microscopic primary qualities of physical things [Armstrong] |
4831 | If the body is affected by an external object, the mind can't help believing that the object exists [Spinoza] |
3900 | Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton] |
4865 | The eyes of the mind are proofs [Spinoza] |
20306 | Once we have experienced two feelings together, one will always give rise to the other [Spinoza] |
18452 | Memory is not conserved images, but reproduction of previous thought [Porphyry] |
4835 | Anyone who knows, must know that they know, and even know that they know that they know.. [Spinoza] |
20308 | Encounters with things confuse the mind, and internal comparisons bring clarity [Spinoza] |
4253 | Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong] |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
4312 | To understand a phenomenon, we must understand why it is necessary, not merely contingent [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
13073 | To understand the properties we must know the essence, as with a circle [Spinoza] |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
4833 | The human mind is the very idea or knowledge of the human body [Spinoza] |
16198 | Knowledge is the essence of the mind [Spinoza] |
17198 | Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza] |
17201 | The will is finite, but the intellect is infinite [Spinoza] |
18453 | Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry] |
17196 | The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false [Spinoza] |
18462 | The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry] |
21805 | Spinoza held that the mind is just a bundle of ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
17204 | Animals are often observed to be wiser than people [Spinoza] |
7437 | Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong] |
17212 | To understand is the absolute virtue of the mind [Spinoza] |
21804 | Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas [Spinoza] |
18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
4832 | If the body is affected by two things together, the imagining of one will conjure up the other [Spinoza] |
21869 | Our own force of persevering is nothing in comparison with external forces [Spinoza] |
20307 | As far as possible, everything tries to persevere [Spinoza] |
21803 | The conatus (striving) of mind and body together is appetite, which is the essence of man [Spinoza] |
4836 | The mind only knows itself by means of ideas of the modification of the body [Spinoza] |
5690 | A mental state without belief refutes self-intimation; a belief with no state refutes infallibility [Armstrong, by Shoemaker] |
21861 | Self-knowledge needs perception of the affections of the body [Spinoza] |
18463 | Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry] |
17216 | The poet who forgot his own tragedies was no longer the same man [Spinoza] |
4814 | A thing is free if it acts by necessity of its own nature, and the act is determined by itself alone [Spinoza] |
19922 | People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason [Spinoza] |
4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
21802 | An act of will can only occur if it has been caused, which implies a regress of causes [Spinoza] |
4837 | 'Free will' is a misunderstanding arising from awareness of our actions, but ignorance of their causes [Spinoza] |
4843 | Would we die if we lacked free will, and were poised between equal foods? Yes! [Spinoza] |
4844 | The mind is not free to remember or forget anything [Spinoza] |
4311 | We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices [Spinoza] |
7828 | The actual world is the only one God could have created [Spinoza] |
18458 | The soul is bound to matter by the force of its own disposition [Porphyry] |
21860 | Ideas and things have identical connections and order [Spinoza] |
4308 | Mind and body are one thing, seen sometimes as thought and sometimes as extension [Spinoza] |
4846 | We are incapable of formulating an idea which excludes the existence of our body [Spinoza] |
7434 | Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong] |
7436 | The manifestations of a disposition need never actually exist [Armstrong] |
5493 | If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan] |
4600 | Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil] |
7429 | Causal Functionalism says mental states are apt for producing behaviour [Armstrong] |
7438 | A causal theory of mentality would be improved by a teleological element [Armstrong] |
4834 | Mind and body are the same thing, sometimes seen as thought, and sometimes as extension [Spinoza] |
7431 | The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong] |
7432 | One mental role might be filled by a variety of physical types [Armstrong] |
23951 | Emotion is a modification of bodily energy, controlling our actions [Spinoza] |
4849 | The three primary emotions are pleasure, pain and desire [Spinoza] |
23990 | The three primary emotions are pleasure, pain, and desire [Spinoza, by Goldie] |
17203 | Minds are subject to passions if they have inadequate ideas [Spinoza] |
4864 | An emotion is only bad if it hinders us from thinking [Spinoza] |
7832 | Stoics want to suppress emotions, but Spinoza overcomes them with higher emotions [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
4863 | An emotion comes more under our control in proportion to how well it is known to us [Spinoza] |
4841 | People make calculation mistakes by misjudging the figures, not calculating them wrongly [Spinoza] |
21807 | Ideas are powerful entities, which can produce further ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
4830 | An 'idea' is a mental conception which is actively formed by the mind in thinking [Spinoza] |
4842 | Ideas are not images formed in the brain, but are the conceptions of thought [Spinoza] |
20311 | An idea involves affirmation or negation [Spinoza] |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
8533 | Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong] |
4035 | There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong] |
18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
4838 | Claiming that actions depend on the will is meaningless; no one knows what the will is [Spinoza] |
4309 | Spinoza argues that in reality the will and the intellect are 'one and the same' [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
20305 | Whenever we act, then desire is our very essence [Spinoza] |
21868 | We love or hate people more strongly because we think they are free [Spinoza] |
17202 | We are the source of an action if only our nature can explain the action [Spinoza] |
21865 | We act when it follows from our nature, and is understood in that way [Spinoza] |
4870 | The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible [Spinoza] |
4867 | Whether nature is beautiful or orderly is entirely in relation to human imagination [Spinoza] |
21873 | Men only agree in nature if they are guided by reason [Spinoza] |
21872 | We seek our own advantage, and virtue is doing this rationally [Spinoza] |
18464 | Justice is each person fulfilling his function [Porphyry] |
17189 | The essence of man is modifications of the nature of God [Spinoza] |
17207 | By 'good' I mean what brings us ever closer to our model of human nature [Spinoza] |
8019 | Along with his pantheism, Spinoza equates ethics with the study of human nature [Spinoza, by MacIntyre] |
17229 | If infancy in humans was very rare, we would consider it a pitiful natural defect [Spinoza] |
4845 | We don't want things because they are good; we judge things to be good because we want them [Spinoza] |
17217 | Love is joy with an external cause [Spinoza] |
18448 | We should avoid the pleasures of love, or at least, should not enact our dreams [Porphyry] |
4848 | Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause [Spinoza] |
7833 | Spinoza names self-interest as the sole source of value [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
17224 | If our ideas were wholly adequate, we would have no concept of evil [Spinoza] |
21870 | Music is good for a melancholic, bad for a mourner, and indifferent to the deaf [Spinoza] |
4860 | Man's highest happiness consists of perfecting his understanding, or reason [Spinoza] |
4847 | Pleasure is a passive state in which the mind increases in perfection [Spinoza] |
4859 | Pleasure is only bad in so far as it hinders a man's capability for action [Spinoza] |
4851 | Reason demands nothing contrary to nature, and so it demands self-love [Spinoza] |
17220 | Self-satisfaction is the highest thing for which we can hope [Spinoza] |
4852 | Both virtue and happiness are based on the preservation of one's own being [Spinoza] |
17214 | To act virtuously is to act rationally [Spinoza] |
21871 | The more we strive for our own advantage, the more virtuous we are [Spinoza] |
17210 | All virtue is founded on self-preservation [Spinoza] |
4856 | To live according to reason is to live according to the laws of human nature [Spinoza] |
18444 | Civil virtues make us behave benevolently, and thereby unite citizens [Porphyry] |
18445 | Civil virtues control the passions, and make us conform to our nature [Porphyry] |
18446 | Purificatory virtues detach the soul completely from the passions [Porphyry] |
17221 | A man ignorant of himself is ignorant of all of the virtues [Spinoza] |
18447 | There are practical, purificatory, contemplative, and exemplary virtues [Porphyry] |
17225 | In a free man, choosing flight can show as much strength of mind as fighting [Spinoza] |
17219 | A person unmoved by either reason or pity to help others is rightly called 'inhuman' [Spinoza] |
4857 | Pity is a bad and useless thing, as it is a pain, and rational people perform good deeds without it [Spinoza] |
17223 | Pity is not a virtue, but at least it shows a desire to live uprightly [Spinoza] |
17218 | People who live according to reason should avoid pity [Spinoza] |
17228 | Rational people judge money by needs, and live contented with very little [Spinoza] |
4853 | Rational people are self-interested, but also desire the same goods for other people [Spinoza] |
4858 | A rational person will want others to have the goods he seeks for himself [Spinoza] |
4855 | If people are obedient to reason, they will live in harmony [Spinoza] |
19935 | Peoples are created by individuals, not by nature, and only distinguished by language and law [Spinoza] |
21874 | The ideal for human preservation is unanimity among people [Spinoza] |
8020 | Only self-knowledge can liberate us [Spinoza, by MacIntyre] |
19914 | In nature everything has an absolute right to do anything it is capable of doing [Spinoza] |
19915 | Natural rights are determined by desire and power, not by reason [Spinoza] |
7412 | Spinoza extended Hobbes's natural rights to cover all possible desires and actions [Spinoza, by Tuck] |
7487 | Society exists to extend human awareness [Spinoza, by Watson] |
19943 | The state aims to allow personal development, so its main purpose is freedom [Spinoza] |
19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
19936 | Kings tend to fight wars for glory, rather than for peace and liberty [Spinoza] |
19937 | Monarchs are always proud, and can't back down [Spinoza] |
19940 | Deposing a monarch is dangerous, because the people are used to royal authority [Spinoza] |
19931 | Every state is more frightened of its own citizens than of external enemies [Spinoza] |
19920 | Democracy is a legitimate gathering of people who do whatever they can do [Spinoza] |
19933 | If religion is law, then piety is justice, impiety is crime, and non-believers must leave [Spinoza] |
19938 | Allowing religious ministers any control of the state is bad for both parties [Spinoza] |
17227 | Slavery is a disgraceful crime [Spinoza] |
19923 | Slavery is not just obedience, but acting only in the interests of the master [Spinoza] |
19939 | Government is oppressive if opinions can be crimes, because people can't give them up [Spinoza] |
19944 | Without liberty of thought there is no trust in the state, and corruption follows [Spinoza] |
19942 | Treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds [Spinoza] |
19924 | The freest state is a rational one, where people can submit themselves to reason [Spinoza] |
7827 | Spinoza wanted democracy based on individual rights, and is thus the first modern political philosopher [Stewart,M on Spinoza] |
19926 | The sovereignty has absolute power over citizens [Spinoza] |
19918 | Forming a society meant following reason, and giving up dangerous appetites and mutual harm [Spinoza] |
19919 | People only give up their rights, and keep promises, if they hope for some greater good [Spinoza] |
19921 | Once you have given up your rights, there is no going back [Spinoza] |
19925 | In democracy we don't abandon our rights, but transfer them to the majority of us [Spinoza] |
19928 | No one, in giving up their power and right, ceases to be a human being [Spinoza] |
19929 | Everyone who gives up their rights must fear the recipients of them [Spinoza] |
19932 | The early Hebrews, following Moses, gave up their rights to God alone [Spinoza] |
19916 | The order of nature does not prohibit anything, and allows whatever appetite produces [Spinoza] |
19927 | State and religious law can clash, so the state must make decisions about religion [Spinoza] |
17226 | The best use of talent is to teach other people to live rationally [Spinoza] |
4854 | It is impossible that the necessity of a person's nature should produce a desire for non-existence [Spinoza] |
17215 | Animals feel, but that doesn't mean we can't use them for our pleasure and profit [Spinoza] |
18456 | Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it [Porphyry] |
17190 | We can easily think of nature as one individual [Spinoza] |
4826 | Nature has no particular goal in view, and final causes are mere human figments [Spinoza] |
1587 | Spinoza strongly attacked teleology, which is the lifeblood of classical logos [Roochnik on Spinoza] |
1588 | For Spinoza eyes don't act for purposes, but follow mechanical necessity [Roochnik on Spinoza] |
12731 | Final causes are figments of human imagination [Spinoza] |
4821 | An infinite line can be marked in feet or inches, so one infinity is twelve times the other [Spinoza] |
17177 | In nature there is just one infinite substance [Spinoza] |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
4850 | A final cause is simply a human desire [Spinoza] |
18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
4815 | From a definite cause an effect necessarily follows [Spinoza] |
4798 | In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation [Armstrong, by Psillos] |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
8541 | Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong] |
8540 | The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong] |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
5492 | How can essences generate the right powers to vary with distance between objects? [Armstrong] |
18454 | Time is the circular movement of the soul [Porphyry] |
18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
7835 | The key question for Spinoza is: is his God really a God? [Stewart,M on Spinoza] |
17231 | God feels no emotions, of joy or sorrow [Spinoza] |
17172 | God is a substance with infinite attributes [Spinoza] |
21859 | God has no purpose, because God lacks nothing [Spinoza] |
4823 | God does not act according to the freedom of the will [Spinoza] |
18460 | God is nowhere, and hence everywhere [Porphyry] |
12928 | Spinoza's God is just power and necessity, without perfection or wisdom [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
7571 | Spinoza's God is not a person [Spinoza, by Jolley] |
4314 | God is wholly without passions, and strictly speaking does not love anyone [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
7609 | God is the sum and principle of all eternal laws [Spinoza, by Armstrong,K] |
19435 | God is not loveable for producing without choice and by necessity; God is loveable for his goodness [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
4866 | God is a being with infinite attributes, each of them infinite or perfect [Spinoza] |
7829 | God no more has human perfections than we have animal perfections [Spinoza] |
4825 | To say that God promotes what is good is false, as it sets up a goal beyond God [Spinoza] |
21856 | Spinoza says a substance of infinite attributes cannot fail to exist [Spinoza, by Lord] |
17178 | Denial of God is denial that his essence involves existence, which is absurd [Spinoza] |
21858 | God is being as such, and you cannot conceive of the non-existence of being [Spinoza, by Lord] |
4820 | God must necessarily exist, because no reason can be given for his non-existence [Spinoza] |
17169 | Some things makes me conceive of it as a thing whose essence requires its existence [Spinoza] |
4817 | If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence does not involve existence [Spinoza] |
4868 | Trying to prove God's existence through miracles is proving the obscure by the more obscure [Spinoza] |
4827 | Priests reject as heretics anyone who tries to understand miracles in a natural way [Spinoza] |
18461 | Everything existing proceeds from divinity, and is within divinity [Porphyry] |
12757 | That God is the substance of all things is an ill-reputed doctrine [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
4829 | The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God [Spinoza] |
17180 | Everything is in God, and nothing exists or is thinkable without God [Spinoza] |
17181 | God is the efficient cause of essences, as well as of existences [Spinoza] |
7830 | A talking triangle would say God is triangular [Spinoza] |
7836 | In Spinoza, one could substitute 'nature' or 'substance' for the word 'God' throughout [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
19934 | Hebrews were very hostile to other states, who had not given up their rights to God [Spinoza] |
4300 | The Bible has nothing in common with reasoning and philosophy [Spinoza] |
7831 | Spinoza's theory of mind implies that there is no immortality [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
21876 | After death, something eternal remains of the mind [Spinoza] |
18449 | Nature binds or detaches body to soul, but soul itself joins and detaches soul from body [Porphyry] |
18457 | Individual souls are all connected, though distinct, and without dividing universal Soul [Porphyry] |