86 ideas
23350 | A wise philosophers uses reason to cautiously judge each aspect of living [Epictetus] |
7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
23355 | The task of philosophy is to establish standards, as occurs with weights and measures [Epictetus] |
23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
21394 | Philosophy is knowing each logos, how they fit together, and what follows from them [Epictetus] |
7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
20876 | Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them [Epictetus] |
7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
15038 | Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault] |
7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
23344 | Reason itself must be compounded from some of our impressions [Epictetus] |
23343 | Because reason performs all analysis, we should analyse reason - but how? [Epictetus] |
15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |
15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
15037 | Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault] |
23359 | We can't believe apparent falsehoods, or deny apparent truths [Epictetus] |
23356 | Self-evidence is most obvious when people who deny a proposition still have to use it [Epictetus] |
7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
23329 | We make progress when we improve and naturalise our choices, asserting their freedom [Epictetus] |
23342 | Freedom is acting by choice, with no constraint possible [Epictetus] |
23330 | Freedom is making all things happen by choice, without constraint [Epictetus] |
23332 | Zeus gave me a nature which is free (like himself) from all compulsion [Epictetus] |
23331 | Not even Zeus can control what I choose [Epictetus] |
23338 | You can fetter my leg, but not even Zeus can control my power of choice [Epictetus] |
7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
20875 | If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus] |
23347 | If I know I am fated to be ill, I should want to be ill [Epictetus] |
7511 | Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker] |
7512 | There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG] |
22235 | Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault] |
23325 | Epictetus developed a notion of will as the source of our responsibility [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
20873 | Tragedies are versified sufferings of people impressed by externals [Epictetus] |
21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
23364 | Homer wrote to show that the most blessed men can be ruined by poor judgement [Epictetus] |
7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
23340 | We consist of animal bodies and god-like reason [Epictetus] |
23366 | We see nature's will in the ways all people are the same [Epictetus] |
7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
23358 | Every species produces exceptional beings, and we must just accept their nature [Epictetus] |
23345 | Don't be frightened of pain or death; only be frightened of fearing them [Epictetus] |
23339 | I will die as becomes a person returning what he does not own [Epictetus] |
23357 | Knowledge of what is good leads to love; only the wise, who distinguish good from evil, can love [Epictetus] |
7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
23363 | The evil for everything is what is contrary to its nature [Epictetus] |
23328 | The essences of good and evil are in dispositions to choose [Epictetus] |
7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
23362 | All human ills result from failure to apply preconceptions to particular cases [Epictetus] |
23353 | We have a natural sense of honour [Epictetus] |
23354 | If someone harms themselves in harming me, then I harm myself by returning the harm [Epictetus] |
23324 | In the Discourses choice [prohairesis] defines our character and behaviour [Epictetus, by Frede,M] |
4022 | Epictetus says we should console others for misfortune, but not be moved by pity [Epictetus, by Taylor,C] |
23365 | If someone is weeping, you should sympathise and help, but not share his suffering [Epictetus] |
23361 | Health is only a good when it is used well [Epictetus] |
23346 | A person is as naturally a part of a city as a foot is part of the body [Epictetus] |
23351 | We are citizens of the universe, and principal parts of it [Epictetus] |
21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
20874 | A citizen is committed to ignore private advantage, and seek communal good [Epictetus] |
23352 | A citizen should only consider what is good for the whole society [Epictetus] |
15040 | Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault] |
15041 | Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault] |
8991 | Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton] |
7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
22236 | The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault] |
21947 | Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting] |
21946 | Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting] |
7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
22604 | Punishing a criminal for moral ignorance is the same as punishing someone for being blind [Epictetus] |
23368 | Perhaps we should persuade culprits that their punishment is just? [Epictetus] |
21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
15039 | History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault] |
23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
7516 | In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker] |
7515 | All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker] |
7514 | Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker] |
23341 | God created humans as spectators and interpreters of God's works [Epictetus] |
23348 | Both god and the good bring benefits, so their true nature seems to be the same [Epictetus] |
23360 | Each of the four elements in you is entirely scattered after death [Epictetus] |