150 ideas
| 13310 | Wisdom does not lie in books, and unread people can also become wise [Seneca] |
| 13560 | A wise man is not subservient to anything [Seneca] |
| 13295 | Wise people escape necessity by willing it [Seneca] |
| 7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 13317 | Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca] |
| 13293 | What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca] |
| 17240 | Definitions are the first step in philosophy [Hobbes] |
| 6211 | Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes] |
| 8014 | Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre] |
| 13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
| 13313 | Even philosophers have got bogged down in analysing tiny bits of language [Seneca] |
| 17237 | Definitions of things that are caused must express their manner of generation [Hobbes] |
| 17239 | Definition is resolution of names into successive genera, and finally the difference [Hobbes] |
| 17241 | A defined name should not appear in the definition [Hobbes] |
| 17242 | 'Petitio principii' is reusing the idea to be defined, in disguised words [Hobbes] |
| 17245 | A part of a part is a part of a whole [Hobbes] |
| 17258 | If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to [Hobbes] |
| 16789 | Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being [Hobbes] |
| 17253 | Change is nothing but movement [Hobbes] |
| 7559 | Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes] |
| 16670 | Accidents are just modes of thinking about bodies [Hobbes] |
| 16621 | Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size [Hobbes] |
| 16734 | The complete power of an event is just the aggregate of the qualities that produced it [Hobbes] |
| 17247 | The only generalities or universals are names or signs [Hobbes] |
| 14960 | Bodies are independent of thought, and coincide with part of space [Hobbes] |
| 17250 | If you separate the two places of one thing, you will also separate the thing [Hobbes] |
| 17249 | If you separated two things in the same place, you would also separate the places [Hobbes] |
| 17248 | If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it [Hobbes] |
| 16620 | A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes] |
| 16790 | A body is always the same, whether the parts are together or dispersed [Hobbes] |
| 17244 | To make a whole, parts needn't be put together, but can be united in the mind [Hobbes] |
| 17233 | Particulars contain universal things [Hobbes] |
| 17246 | Some accidental features are permanent, unless the object perishes [Hobbes] |
| 17251 | The feature which picks out or names a thing is usually called its 'essence' [Hobbes] |
| 16622 | Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes] |
| 17257 | It is the same river if it has the same source, no matter what flows in it [Hobbes] |
| 12853 | Some individuate the ship by unity of matter, and others by unity of form [Hobbes] |
| 17256 | If a new ship were made of the discarded planks, would two ships be numerically the same? [Hobbes] |
| 16794 | As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being [Hobbes] |
| 17255 | Two bodies differ when (at some time) you can say something of one you can't say of the other [Hobbes] |
| 6215 | 'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause [Hobbes] |
| 16582 | We can imagine a point swelling and contracting - but not how this could be done [Hobbes] |
| 8417 | Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway] |
| 16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
| 2356 | Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes [Hobbes] |
| 16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
| 7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
| 2357 | Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd [Hobbes] |
| 13297 | To the four causes Plato adds a fifth, the idea which guided the event [Seneca] |
| 17238 | Science aims to show causes and generation of things [Hobbes] |
| 17260 | Imagination is just weakened sensation [Hobbes] |
| 19373 | A 'conatus' is an initial motion, experienced by us as desire or aversion [Hobbes, by Arthur,R] |
| 2358 | Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes] |
| 2384 | Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes] |
| 6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
| 2385 | If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes] |
| 6214 | Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes] |
| 13307 | If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul [Seneca] |
| 6208 | Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes] |
| 2948 | Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being [Hobbes] |
| 23987 | The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief [Hobbes, by Goldie] |
| 17261 | Apart from pleasure and pain, the only emotions are appetite and aversion [Hobbes] |
| 17236 | Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned [Hobbes] |
| 21399 | Referring to a person, and speaking about him, are very different [Seneca] |
| 2362 | The will is just the last appetite before action [Hobbes] |
| 7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 2363 | Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars [Hobbes] |
| 7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |
| 13558 | The supreme good is harmony of spirit [Seneca] |
| 2360 | 'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes] |
| 13325 | Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason [Seneca] |
| 7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 2368 | Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so [Hobbes] |
| 6209 | There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 13294 | We know death, which is like before birth; ceasing to be and never beginning are the same [Seneca] |
| 13299 | Living is nothing wonderful; what matters is to die well [Seneca] |
| 13300 | It is as silly to lament ceasing to be as to lament not having lived in the remote past [Seneca] |
| 13321 | Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca] |
| 2359 | Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes] |
| 2370 | All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer [Hobbes] |
| 13292 | Selfishness does not produce happiness; to live for yourself, live for others [Seneca] |
| 7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| 13550 | To be always happy is to lack knowledge of one half of nature [Seneca] |
| 13303 | A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca] |
| 13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
| 6210 | Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes] |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| 13323 | The whole point of pleasure-seeking is novelty, and abandoning established ways [Seneca] |
| 8015 | Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
| 2371 | A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes] |
| 2372 | The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes] |
| 5337 | For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan] |
| 2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
| 8016 | Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
| 2375 | Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes] |
| 2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
| 2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
| 2373 | The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes] |
| 2382 | Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes] |
| 13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
| 13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
| 13559 | I seek virtue, because it is its own reward [Seneca] |
| 2383 | Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes] |
| 13554 | True greatness is never allowing events to disturb you [Seneca] |
| 13305 | Character is ruined by not looking back over our pasts, since the future rests on the past [Seneca] |
| 13561 | Virtue is always moderate, so excess need not be feared [Seneca] |
| 13562 | It is shameful to not even recognise your own slaves [Seneca] |
| 13556 | Every night I critically review how I have behaved during the day [Seneca] |
| 13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
| 13553 | Anger is a vice which afflicts good men as well as bad [Seneca] |
| 13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
| 13552 | Anger is an extreme vice, threatening sanity, and gripping whole states [Seneca] |
| 2376 | Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes] |
| 13549 | Nothing bad can happen to a good man [Seneca] |
| 13564 | There is far more scope for virtue if you are wealthy; poverty only allows endurance [Seneca] |
| 13563 | Why does your wife wear in her ears the income of a wealthy house? [Seneca] |
| 13565 | If wealth was a good, it would make men good [Seneca] |
| 2367 | In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes] |
| 19764 | Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau] |
| 20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
| 13315 | To govern used to mean to serve, not to rule; rulers did not test their powers over those who bestowed it [Seneca] |
| 13557 | Unfortunately the majority do not tend to favour what is best [Seneca] |
| 2366 | There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another [Hobbes] |
| 20485 | Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
| 2369 | If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes] |
| 20484 | We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
| 7573 | The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural [Hobbes, by Jolley] |
| 2380 | Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence [Hobbes] |
| 23609 | I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes] |
| 2361 | If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition [Hobbes] |
| 13290 | One joy of learning is making teaching possible [Seneca] |
| 13322 | Both teachers and pupils should aim at one thing - the improvement of the pupil [Seneca] |
| 13298 | Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca] |
| 13319 | If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca] |
| 13320 | Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca] |
| 6212 | Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes] |
| 16600 | Prime matter is body considered with mere size and extension, and potential [Hobbes] |
| 17252 | Acting on a body is either creating or destroying a property in it [Hobbes] |
| 17254 | An effect needs a sufficient and necessary cause [Hobbes] |
| 2364 | Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between [Hobbes] |
| 17235 | A cause is the complete sum of the features which necessitate the effect [Hobbes] |
| 17234 | Motion is losing one place and acquiring another [Hobbes] |
| 17259 | 'Force' is the quantity of movement imposed on something [Hobbes] |
| 13548 | The ocean changes in volume in proportion to the attraction of the moon [Seneca] |
| 13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
| 17243 | Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories [Hobbes] |
| 7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
| 2365 | Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes] |
| 2378 | Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip [Hobbes] |