791 ideas
| 1922 | Spiritual qualities only become advantageous with the growth of wisdom [Plato] |
| 14179 | The finest branch of wisdom is justice and moderation in ordering states and families [Plato] |
| 354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible [Plato] |
| 13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| 13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
| 2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
| 291 | Don't assume that wisdom is the automatic consequence of old age [Plato] |
| 9764 | Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine] |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
| 326 | For relaxation one can consider the world of change, instead of eternal things [Plato] |
| 160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
| 1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
| 315 | Philosophy is the supreme gift of the gods to mortals [Plato] |
| 370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife [Plato] |
| 23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
| 15447 | We shouldn't always follow where the argument leads! [Lewis on Plato] |
| 9763 | For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine] |
| 125 | Is a gifted philosopher unmanly if he avoids the strife of the communal world? [Plato] |
| 2056 | Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato] |
| 13736 | Quinean metaphysics just lists the beings, which is a domain with no internal structure [Schaffer,J on Quine] |
| 1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
| 22153 | Quine rejects Carnap's view that science and philosophy are distinct [Quine, by Boulter] |
| 22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
| 6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
| 6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| 2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
| 166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
| 16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
| 2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
| 23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
| 8996 | If if time is money then if time is not money then time is money then if if if time is not money... [Quine] |
| 22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |
| 1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
| 16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| 243 | It is foolish to quarrel with the mind's own reasoning processes [Plato] |
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
| 241 | We ought to follow where the argument leads us [Plato] |
| 2082 | A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato] |
| 362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument [Plato] |
| 21264 | Mortals are incapable of being fully rational [Plato] |
| 306 | Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato] |
| 9023 | If you say that a contradiction is true, you change the meaning of 'not', and so change the subject [Quine] |
| 6564 | To affirm 'p and not-p' is to have mislearned 'and' or 'not' [Quine] |
| 192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| 8208 | In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine] |
| 22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
| 8207 | The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine] |
| 1644 | Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato] |
| 13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| 2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
| 2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
| 4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 287 | Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato] |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| 1654 | In "Gorgias" Socrates is confident that his 'elenchus' will decide moral truth [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 4321 | We should test one another, by asking and answering questions [Plato] |
| 2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
| 20478 | In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato] |
| 2052 | Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato] |
| 2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
| 1623 | Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it [Quine] |
| 16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
| 16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
| 15854 | A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato] |
| 19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
| 8995 | Definition by words is determinate but relative; fixing contexts could make it absolute [Quine] |
| 19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
| 21699 | Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine] |
| 21697 | The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [Quine] |
| 251 | Truth has the supreme value, for both gods and men [Plato] |
| 13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
| 21750 | Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine] |
| 9012 | Talk of 'truth' when sentences are mentioned; it reminds us that reality is the point of sentences [Quine] |
| 9011 | Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence [Quine] |
| 22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
| 9013 | We can eliminate 'or' from our basic theory, by paraphrasing 'p or q' as 'not(not-p and not-q)' [Quine] |
| 2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
| 13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
| 10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
| 5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
| 22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
| 3302 | Set theory is full of Platonist metaphysics, so Quine aimed to keep it separate from logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 9879 | NF has no models, but just blocks the comprehension axiom, to avoid contradictions [Quine, by Dummett] |
| 10211 | Quine wants V = L for a cleaner theory, despite the scepticism of most theorists [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 21717 | Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B] |
| 18170 | The Axiom of Reducibility is self-effacing: if true, it isn't needed [Quine] |
| 21695 | The set scheme discredited by paradoxes is actually the most natural one [Quine] |
| 21693 | Russell's antinomy challenged the idea that any condition can produce a set [Quine] |
| 3336 | Two things can never entail three things [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 15845 | It seems absurd that seeing a person's limbs, the one is many, and yet the many are one [Plato] |
| 13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
| 9020 | My logical grammar has sentences by predication, then negation, conjunction, and existential quantification [Quine] |
| 9028 | Maybe logical truth reflects reality, but in different ways in different languages [Quine] |
| 9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
| 13639 | Quine says higher-order items are intensional, and lack a clearly defined identity relation [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
| 10014 | Quine rejects second-order logic, saying that predicates refer to multiple objects [Quine, by Hodes] |
| 10828 | Quantifying over predicates is treating them as names of entities [Quine] |
| 13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
| 12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
| 10064 | Quine quickly dismisses If-thenism [Quine, by Musgrave] |
| 20296 | Logic needs general conventions, but that needs logic to apply them to individual cases [Quine, by Rey] |
| 8998 | Claims that logic and mathematics are conventional are either empty, uninteresting, or false [Quine] |
| 8999 | Logic isn't conventional, because logic is needed to infer logic from conventions [Quine] |
| 9000 | If a convention cannot be communicated until after its adoption, what is its role? [Quine] |
| 19043 | Bivalence applies not just to sentences, but that general terms are true or false of each object [Quine] |
| 9024 | Excluded middle has three different definitions [Quine] |
| 10012 | Quantification theory can still be proved complete if we add identity [Quine] |
| 22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
| 13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
| 1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
| 12221 | 'Corner quotes' (quasi-quotation) designate 'whatever these terms designate' [Quine] |
| 21698 | All relations, apart from ancestrals, can be reduced to simpler logic [Quine] |
| 8453 | If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers [Quine] |
| 13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
| 13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
| 13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
| 10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
| 13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
| 19321 | We might do without names, by converting them into predicates [Quine, by Kirkham] |
| 8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 9204 | Quine's arguments fail because he naively conflates names with descriptions [Fine,K on Quine] |
| 9016 | Names are not essential, because naming can be turned into predication [Quine] |
| 1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
| 10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
| 10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into [Quine] |
| 10311 | No sense can be made of quantification into opaque contexts [Quine, by Hale] |
| 10538 | Finite quantification can be eliminated in favour of disjunction and conjunction [Quine, by Dummett] |
| 9015 | Universal quantification is widespread, but it is definable in terms of existential quantification [Quine] |
| 10793 | Quine thought substitutional quantification confused use and mention, but then saw its nominalist appeal [Quine, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10801 | Either reference really matters, or we don't need to replace it with substitutions [Quine] |
| 21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
| 9025 | You can't base quantification on substituting names for variables, if the irrationals cannot all be named [Quine] |
| 9026 | Some quantifications could be false substitutionally and true objectually, because of nameless objects [Quine] |
| 10705 | Putting a predicate letter in a quantifier is to make it the name of an entity [Quine] |
| 12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
| 9027 | A sentence is logically true if all sentences with that grammatical structure are true [Quine] |
| 11259 | How can you seek knowledge of something if you don't know it? [Plato] |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| 21691 | Antinomies contradict accepted ways of reasoning, and demand revisions [Quine] |
| 21690 | Whenever the pursuer reaches the spot where the pursuer has been, the pursued has moved on [Quine] |
| 9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
| 21689 | A barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves. So does he shave himself? [Quine] |
| 21694 | Membership conditions which involve membership and non-membership are paradoxical [Quine] |
| 21692 | If we write it as '"this sentence is false" is false', there is no paradox [Quine] |
| 8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
| 9867 | It is absurd to define a circle, but not be able to recognise a real one [Plato] |
| 8994 | If analytic geometry identifies figures with arithmetical relations, logicism can include geometry [Quine] |
| 16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
| 17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
| 13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? [Plato] |
| 9865 | Daily arithmetic counts unequal things, but pure arithmetic equalises them [Plato] |
| 8997 | There are four different possible conventional accounts of geometry [Quine] |
| 8463 | Maths can be reduced to logic and set theory [Quine] |
| 8203 | All the arithmetical entities can be reduced to classes of integers, and hence to sets [Quine] |
| 10242 | I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine] |
| 9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
| 9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
| 8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
| 10216 | We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato] |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| 21696 | Nominalism rejects both attributes and classes (where extensionalism accepts the classes) [Quine] |
| 17738 | Quine blurs the difference between knowledge of arithmetic and of physics [Jenkins on Quine] |
| 9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
| 18198 | Mathematics is part of science; transfinite mathematics I take as mostly uninterpreted [Quine] |
| 9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
| 8993 | If mathematics follows from definitions, then it is conventional, and part of logic [Quine] |
| 21557 | Russell confused use and mention, and reduced classes to properties, not to language [Quine, by Lackey] |
| 1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
| 1635 | Mathematics reduces to set theory (which is a bit vague and unobvious), but not to logic proper [Quine] |
| 9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
| 1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
| 1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
| 8466 | For Quine, intuitionist ontology is inadequate for classical mathematics [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8467 | Intuitionists only admit numbers properly constructed, but classical maths covers all reals in a 'limit' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
| 10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| 11278 | What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato] |
| 1643 | If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato] |
| 21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| 4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
| 7022 | To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato] |
| 19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
| 16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
| 1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
| 2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
| 2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
| 2060 | There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato] |
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| 8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
| 1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| 16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
| 14503 | If a mixture does not contain measure and proportion, it is corrupted and destroyed [Plato] |
| 15857 | Any mixture which lacks measure and proportion doesn't even count as a mixture at all [Plato] |
| 12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
| 7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| 1641 | Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato] |
| 18438 | Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine] |
| 10243 | My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine] |
| 19042 | Terms learned by ostension tend to be vague, because that must be quick and unrefined [Quine] |
| 10784 | Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato] |
| 8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| 19485 | Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything [Quine] |
| 10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
| 19486 | We can use quantification for commitment to unnameable things like the real numbers [Quine] |
| 5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
| 16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
| 1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
| 16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
| 16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
| 8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
| 4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
| 18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
| 18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
| 3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
| 7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
| 19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
| 14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
| 16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
| 13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
| 16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
| 16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 8461 | The category of objects incorporates the old distinction of substances and their modes [Quine] |
| 8534 | Quine says the predicate of a true statement has no ontological implications [Quine, by Armstrong] |
| 7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
| 10295 | Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 3322 | Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 6078 | Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn] |
| 9017 | Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication [Quine] |
| 8479 | Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 18439 | Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine] |
| 14296 | Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine] |
| 16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
| 15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
| 15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
| 16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
| 1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
| 3751 | Universals are acceptable if they are needed to make an accepted theory true [Quine, by Jacquette] |
| 2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
| 153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| 360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato] |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| 154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
| 12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| 16122 | Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato] |
| 10422 | The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato] |
| 12042 | Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas] |
| 307 | Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato] |
| 318 | In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato] |
| 321 | For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato] |
| 1607 | Diotima said the Forms are the objects of desire in philosophical discourse [Plato, by Roochnik] |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| 1 | There is only one source for all beauty [Plato] |
| 368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them [Plato] |
| 304 | Beautiful things must be different from beauty itself, but beauty itself must be present in each of them [Plato] |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 4447 | If the good is one, is it unchanged when it is in particulars, and is it then separated from itself? [Plato] |
| 317 | The universe is basically an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it [Plato] |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| 17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| 190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
| 5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
| 15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
| 9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |
| 4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| 8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
| 18442 | You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine] |
| 7970 | Quine is committed to sets, but is more a Class Nominalist than a Platonist [Quine, by Macdonald,C] |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| 1628 | If physical objects are a myth, they are useful for making sense of experience [Quine] |
| 7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
| 8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
| 8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
| 9018 | A physical object is the four-dimensional material content of a portion of space-time [Quine] |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| 13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
| 15783 | Definite descriptions can't unambiguously pick out an object which doesn't exist [Lycan on Quine] |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
| 18441 | No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine] |
| 13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
| 15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| 15856 | A thing can become one or many, depending on how we talk about it [Plato] |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 16597 | Quantity is the capacity to be divided [Digby] |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| 374 | If one object is divided into its parts, someone can then say that one are many and many is one [Plato] |
| 2084 | If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato] |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| 15844 | A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato] |
| 15843 | The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato] |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| 13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
| 21259 | To grasp a thing we need its name, its definition, and what it really is [Plato] |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| 10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties [Quine] |
| 13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
| 10929 | Aristotelian essence of the object has become the modern essence of meaning [Quine] |
| 10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
| 8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
| 12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
| 13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
| 9019 | Four-d objects helps predication of what no longer exists, and quantification over items from different times [Quine] |
| 16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers [Plato] |
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| 18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
| 17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| 18440 | Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine] |
| 13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| 10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences [Quine] |
| 14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
| 12188 | Contrary to some claims, Quine does not deny logical necessity [Quine, by McFetridge] |
| 9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
| 9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 15090 | Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker] |
| 10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
| 4577 | There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity [Quine] |
| 8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
| 8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
| 10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine] |
| 15782 | Quine wants identity and individuation-conditions for possibilia [Quine, by Lycan] |
| 9014 | Some conditionals can be explained just by negation and conjunction: not(p and not-q) [Quine] |
| 15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
| 15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
| 22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
| 15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
| 15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
| 15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
| 15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
| 8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
| 2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
| 13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
| 12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
| 9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
| 13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
| 2080 | Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato] |
| 16120 | Knowing how to achieve immortality is pointless without the knowledge how to use immortality [Plato] |
| 2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
| 16126 | Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato] |
| 20219 | True opinions only become really valuable when they are tied down by reasons [Plato] |
| 20184 | The only real evil is loss of knowledge [Plato] |
| 20185 | The most important things in life are wisdom and knowledge [Plato] |
| 13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
| 2050 | It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato] |
| 2076 | How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato] |
| 18969 | How do you distinguish three beliefs from four beliefs or two beliefs? [Quine] |
| 389 | How can you be certain about aspects of the world if they aren't constant? [Plato] |
| 18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
| 9379 | A sentence is obvious if it is true, and any speaker of the language will instantly agree to it [Quine] |
| 5985 | Seeking and learning are just recollection [Plato] |
| 5986 | The slave boy learns geometry from questioning, not teaching, so it is recollection [Plato] |
| 5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
| 357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
| 359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
| 9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
| 9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
| 9383 | Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine] |
| 12424 | Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher] |
| 9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
| 9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
| 9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
| 2045 | Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| 2067 | Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato] |
| 21686 | Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine] |
| 2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
| 334 | Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato] |
| 1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
| 2069 | Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato] |
| 2078 | You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato] |
| 151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
| 2068 | With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato] |
| 1620 | Empiricism makes a basic distinction between truths based or not based on facts [Quine] |
| 1629 | Our outer beliefs must match experience, and our inner ones must be simple [Quine] |
| 19049 | In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine] |
| 8450 | Quine's empiricism is based on whole theoretical systems, not on single mental events [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 19046 | Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine] |
| 21685 | Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine] |
| 19488 | The second dogma is linking every statement to some determinate observations [Quine, by Yablo] |
| 1923 | As a guide to action, true opinion is as good as knowledge [Plato] |
| 174 | True opinion without reason is midway between wisdom and ignorance [Plato] |
| 2089 | An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato] |
| 2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
| 2085 | Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato] |
| 2091 | Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato] |
| 2087 | A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato] |
| 2090 | A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato] |
| 2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
| 2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
| 303 | Say how many teeth the other has, then count them. If you are right, we will trust your other claims [Plato] |
| 7627 | You can't reduce epistemology to psychology, because that presupposes epistemology [Maund on Quine] |
| 8871 | We should abandon a search for justification or foundations, and focus on how knowledge is acquired [Quine, by Davidson] |
| 8826 | If we abandon justification and normativity in epistemology, we must also abandon knowledge [Kim on Quine] |
| 8827 | Without normativity, naturalized epistemology isn't even about beliefs [Kim on Quine] |
| 8899 | Epistemology is a part of psychology, studying how our theories relate to our evidence [Quine] |
| 13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
| 2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
| 1919 | You don't need to learn what you know, and how do you seek for what you don't know? [Plato] |
| 3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
| 1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
| 335 | Do the gods also hold different opinions about what is right and honourable? [Plato] |
| 2053 | If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato] |
| 2054 | Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato] |
| 2059 | How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato] |
| 16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
| 165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
| 4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
| 21687 | It seems obvious to prefer the simpler of two theories, on grounds of beauty and convenience [Quine] |
| 21688 | There are four suspicious reasons why we prefer simpler theories [Quine] |
| 4713 | For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady] |
| 1625 | Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine] |
| 16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
| 16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
| 21748 | More careful inductions gradually lead to the hypothetico-deductive method [Quine] |
| 16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| 15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them [Plato] |
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| 13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
| 6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
| 6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
| 9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
| 5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
| 21260 | Soul is what is defined by 'self-generating motion' [Plato] |
| 2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
| 1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato] |
| 191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
| 16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
| 16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
| 16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
| 8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
| 276 | My individuality is my soul, which carries my body around [Plato] |
| 364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another [Plato] |
| 180 | We call a person the same throughout life, but all their attributes change [Plato] |
| 181 | Only the gods stay unchanged; we replace our losses with similar acquisitions [Plato] |
| 330 | No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato] |
| 3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
| 8462 | A hallucination can, like an ague, be identified with its host; the ontology is physical, the idiom mental [Quine] |
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
| 8898 | Inculcations of meanings of words rests ultimately on sensory evidence [Quine] |
| 1626 | It is troublesome nonsense to split statements into a linguistic and a factual component [Quine] |
| 22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
| 21700 | Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine] |
| 21701 | Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine] |
| 1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
| 7317 | 'Renate' and 'cordate' have identical extensions, but are not synonymous [Quine, by Miller,A] |
| 9009 | Single words are strongly synonymous if their interchange preserves truth [Quine] |
| 1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
| 1621 | Once meaning and reference are separated, meaning ceases to seem important [Quine] |
| 9471 | Intensions are creatures of darkness which should be exorcised [Quine] |
| 8202 | Meaning is essence divorced from things and wedded to words [Quine] |
| 1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
| 4712 | Quine says there is no matter of fact about reference - it is 'inscrutable' [Quine, by O'Grady] |
| 8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 15788 | Syntax and semantics are indeterminate, and modern 'semantics' is a bogus subject [Quine, by Lycan] |
| 19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
| 16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
| 18967 | A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine] |
| 18968 | The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine] |
| 9007 | It makes no sense to say that two sentences express the same proposition [Quine] |
| 9008 | There is no rule for separating the information from other features of sentences [Quine] |
| 9010 | We can abandon propositions, and just talk of sentences and equivalence [Quine] |
| 9371 | Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine] |
| 19487 | Without the analytic/synthetic distinction, Carnap's ontology/empirical distinction collapses [Quine] |
| 9366 | Quine's attack on analyticity undermined linguistic views of necessity, and analytic views of the a priori [Quine, by Boghossian] |
| 14473 | Quine attacks the Fregean idea that we can define analyticity through synonyous substitution [Quine, by Thomasson] |
| 7321 | The last two parts of 'Two Dogmas' are much the best [Miller,A on Quine] |
| 8803 | Erasing the analytic/synthetic distinction got rid of meanings, and saved philosophy of language [Davidson on Quine] |
| 17737 | The analytic needs excessively small units of meaning and empirical confirmation [Quine, by Jenkins] |
| 1624 | If we try to define analyticity by synonymy, that leads back to analyticity [Quine] |
| 8900 | In observation sentences, we could substitute community acceptance for analyticity [Quine] |
| 8201 | The distinction between meaning and further information is as vague as the essence/accident distinction [Quine] |
| 19050 | Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine] |
| 21338 | I will even consider changing a meaning to save a law; I question the meaning-fact cleavage [Quine] |
| 1622 | Did someone ever actually define 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man'? [Quine] |
| 114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| 5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
| 159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
| 283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
| 5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
| 9021 | A good way of explaining an expression is saying what conditions make its contexts true [Quine] |
| 19045 | Translation is too flimsy a notion to support theories of cultural incommensurability [Quine] |
| 3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
| 6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
| 6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
| 6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
| 6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
| 1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
| 1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
| 18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
| 6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
| 6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
| 7330 | The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A] |
| 135 | All activity aims at the good [Plato] |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| 16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
| 203 | Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato] |
| 1655 | If goodness needs true opinion but not knowledge, you can skip the 'examined life' [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 249 | People who value beauty above virtue insult the soul by placing the body above it [Plato] |
| 172 | Love of ugliness is impossible [Plato] |
| 390 | If goodness involves moderation and proportion, then it seems to be found in beauty [Plato] |
| 299 | What is fine is always difficult [Plato] |
| 155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
| 4026 | Beauty is harmony with what is divine, and ugliness is lack of such harmony [Plato] |
| 173 | Beauty and goodness are the same [Plato] |
| 183 | Stage two is the realisation that beauty of soul is of more value than beauty of body [Plato] |
| 184 | Progress goes from physical beauty, to moral beauty, to the beauty of knowledge, and reaches absolute beauty [Plato] |
| 282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| 16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
| 2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
| 2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
| 2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
| 297 | What is fine is the parent of goodness [Plato] |
| 168 | To understand morality requires a soul [Plato] |
| 2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
| 302 | What knowledge is required to live well? [Plato] |
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| 143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
| 4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 122 | Moral rules are made by the weak members of humanity [Plato] |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 21749 | Altruistic values concern other persons, and ceremonial values concern practices [Quine] |
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 1590 | The just man does not harm his enemies, but benefits everyone [Plato] |
| 21751 | Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine] |
| 14177 | Love assists men in achieving merit and happiness [Plato] |
| 179 | Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good [Plato] |
| 176 | Love follows beauty, wisdom is exceptionally beautiful, so love follows wisdom [Plato] |
| 139 | A good person is bound to act well, and this brings happiness [Plato] |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| 128 | Is it natural to simply indulge our selfish desires? [Plato] |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| 202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
| 4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
| 2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
| 391 | The good involves beauty, proportion and truth [Plato] |
| 2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
| 295 | The good is beautiful [Plato] |
| 2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
| 2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
| 2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
| 392 | Neither intellect nor pleasure are the good, because they are not perfect and self-sufficient [Plato] |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| 393 | Good first, then beauty, then reason, then knowledge, then pleasure [Plato, by PG] |
| 177 | If a person is good they will automatically become happy [Plato] |
| 2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
| 301 | Only knowledge of some sort is good [Plato] |
| 2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
| 4322 | In slaking our thirst the goodness of the action and the pleasure are clearly separate [Plato] |
| 136 | Good should be the aim of pleasant activity, not the other way round [Plato] |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 265 | An action is only just if it is performed by someone with a just character and outlook [Plato] |
| 193 | Some things are good even though they are not beneficial to men [Plato] |
| 269 | Attempted murder is like real murder, but we should respect the luck which avoided total ruin [Plato] |
| 14178 | Happiness is secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful [Plato] |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 332 | One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance [Plato] |
| 385 | Some of the pleasures and pains we feel are false [Plato] |
| 387 | A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain [Plato] |
| 2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
| 376 | Would you prefer a life of pleasure without reason, or one of reason without pleasure? [Plato] |
| 379 | The good must be sufficient and perfect, and neither intellect nor pleasure are that [Plato] |
| 373 | Pleasure is certainly very pleasant, but it doesn't follow that all pleasures are good [Plato] |
| 157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
| 371 | Reason, memory, truth and wisdom are far better than pleasure, for those who can attain them [Plato] |
| 240 | It would be strange if the gods rewarded those who experienced the most pleasure in life [Plato] |
| 197 | Some pleasures are not good, and some pains are not evil [Plato] |
| 200 | People tend only to disapprove of pleasure if it leads to pain, or prevents future pleasure [Plato] |
| 2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
| 382 | It is unlikely that the gods feel either pleasure or pain [Plato] |
| 381 | We feel pleasure when we approach our natural state of harmony [Plato] |
| 2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| 386 | Intense pleasure and pain are not felt in a good body, but in a worthless one [Plato] |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| 134 | Good and bad people seem to experience equal amounts of pleasure and pain [Plato] |
| 4319 | In a fool's mind desire is like a leaky jar, insatiable in its desires, and order and contentment are better [Plato] |
| 2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
| 2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
| 264 | The conquest of pleasure is the noblest victory of all [Plato] |
| 132 | If happiness is the satisfaction of desires, then a life of scratching itches should be happiness [Plato] |
| 2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
| 1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
| 388 | Hedonists must say that someone in pain is bad, even if they are virtuous [Plato] |
| 130 | Is the happiest state one of sensual, self-indulgent freedom? [Plato] |
| 377 | If you lived a life of maximum pleasure, would you still be lacking anything? [Plato] |
| 378 | A life of pure pleasure with no intellect is the life of a jellyfish [Plato] |
| 19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
| 2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
| 5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
| 7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
| 8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| 13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| 144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
| 5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 4332 | Virtue is a concord of reason and emotion, with pleasure and pain trained to correct ends [Plato] |
| 248 | A serious desire for moral excellence is very rare indeed [Plato] |
| 182 | The first step on the right path is the contemplation of physical beauty when young [Plato] |
| 263 | The only worthwhile life is one devoted to physical and moral perfection [Plato] |
| 120 | Should we avoid evil because it will bring us bad consequences? [Plato] |
| 170 | The only slavery which is not dishonourable is slavery to excellence [Plato] |
| 253 | Every crime is the result of excessive self-love [Plato] |
| 189 | If we punish wrong-doers, it shows that we believe virtue can be taught [Plato] |
| 204 | Socrates is contradicting himself in claiming virtue can't be taught, but that it is knowledge [Plato] |
| 235 | Virtue is the aim of all laws [Plato] |
| 1913 | Is virtue taught, or achieved by practice, or a natural aptitude, or what? [Plato] |
| 1921 | If virtue is a type of knowledge then it ought to be taught [Plato] |
| 1927 | It seems that virtue is neither natural nor taught, but is a divine gift [Plato] |
| 188 | Socrates did not believe that virtue could be taught [Plato] |
| 118 | I would rather be a victim of crime than a criminal [Plato] |
| 305 | Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato] |
| 281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
| 1918 | How can you know part of virtue without knowing the whole? [Plato] |
| 1916 | Even if virtues are many and various, they must have something in common to make them virtues [Plato] |
| 277 | The Guardians must aim to discover the common element in the four cardinal virtues [Plato] |
| 2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
| 2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
| 131 | If absence of desire is happiness, then nothing is happier than a stone or a corpse [Plato] |
| 140 | Self-indulgent desire makes friendship impossible, because it makes a person incapable of co-operation [Plato] |
| 254 | Excessive laughter and tears must be avoided [Plato] |
| 23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
| 119 | A criminal is worse off if he avoids punishment [Plato] |
| 2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
| 266 | Injustice is the mastery of the soul by bad feelings, even if they do not lead to harm [Plato] |
| 129 | Do most people praise self-discipline and justice because they are too timid to gain their own pleasure? [Plato] |
| 293 | Being unafraid (perhaps through ignorance) and being brave are two different things [Plato] |
| 4320 | The popular view is that health is first, good looks second, and honest wealth third [Plato] |
| 256 | Virtue and great wealth are incompatible [Plato] |
| 242 | The best people are produced where there is no excess of wealth or poverty [Plato] |
| 351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato] |
| 294 | People say that friendship exists only between good men [Plato] |
| 156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
| 137 | As with other things, a good state is organised and orderly [Plato] |
| 19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
| 10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
| 23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
| 245 | Totalitarian states destroy friendships and community spirit [Plato] |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| 22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 141 | A good citizen won't be passive, but will redirect the needs of the state [Plato] |
| 2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
| 239 | Education in virtue produces citizens who are active but obedient [Plato] |
| 262 | Men and women should qualify equally for honours on merit [Plato] |
| 123 | Do most people like equality because they are second-rate? [Plato] |
| 1402 | Friendship is impossible between master and slave, even if they are made equal [Plato] |
| 124 | Does nature imply that it is right for better people to have greater benefits? [Plato] |
| 236 | Sound laws achieve the happiness of those who observe them [Plato] |
| 259 | Justice is granting the equality which unequals deserve [Plato] |
| 322 | Intelligence is the result of rational teaching; true opinion can result from irrational persuasion [Plato] |
| 2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
| 2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
| 331 | Bad governments prevent discussion, and discourage the study of virtue [Plato] |
| 238 | Children's games should channel their pleasures into adult activity [Plato] |
| 260 | Control of education is the key office of state, and should go to the best citizen [Plato] |
| 257 | Mathematics has the widest application of any subject on the curriculum [Plato] |
| 2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| 1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
| 4331 | Education is channelling a child's feelings into the right course before it understands why [Plato] |
| 250 | The best way to educate the young is not to rebuke them, but to set a good example [Plato] |
| 298 | While sex is very pleasant, it should be in secret, as it looks contemptible [Plato] |
| 310 | The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato] |
| 311 | The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato] |
| 275 | Creation is not for you; you exist for the sake of creation [Plato] |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| 325 | We must consider the four basic shapes as too small to see, only becoming visible in large numbers [Plato] |
| 16731 | Colours arise from the rarity, density and mixture of matter [Digby] |
| 7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
| 16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
| 16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
| 16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
| 327 | There are two types of cause, the necessary and the divine [Plato] |
| 13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! [Plato] |
| 10370 | Causal relata are individuated by coarse spacetime regions [Quine, by Schaffer,J] |
| 16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
| 17862 | Essence gives an illusion of understanding [Quine, by Almog] |
| 10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |
| 18970 | The concept of a 'point' makes no sense without the idea of absolute position [Quine] |
| 314 | Heavenly movements gave us the idea of time, and caused us to inquire about the heavens [Plato] |
| 13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 312 | Time came into existence with the heavens, so that there will be a time when they can be dissolved [Plato] |
| 369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force [Plato] |
| 309 | Clearly the world is good, so its maker must have been concerned with the eternal, not with change [Plato] |
| 148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
| 308 | If the cosmos is an object of perception then it must be continually changing [Plato] |
| 273 | Movement is transmitted through everything, and it must have started with self-generated motion [Plato] |
| 13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
| 13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |
| 279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |
| 175 | Gods are not lovers of wisdom, because they are already wise [Plato] |
| 152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
| 2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
| 336 | Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? (the 'Euthyphro Question') [Plato] |
| 337 | It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato] |
| 2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
| 8004 | In 'The Laws', to obey the law is to be obey god [Plato, by MacIntyre] |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| 21257 | Self-generating motion is clearly superior to all other kinds of motion [Plato] |
| 21258 | The only possible beginning for the endless motions of reality is something self-generated [Plato] |
| 21261 | Self-moving soul has to be the oldest thing there is [Plato] |
| 274 | Soul must be the cause of all the opposites, such as good and evil or beauty and ugliness [Plato] |
| 21263 | If all the motions of nature reflect calculations of reason, then the best kind of soul must direct it [Plato] |
| 14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
| 150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
| 278 | If astronomical movements are seen as necessary instead of by divine will, this leads to atheism [Plato] |
| 149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
| 21265 | The heavens must be full of gods, controlling nature either externally or from within [Plato] |
| 21262 | There must be at least two souls controlling the cosmos, one doing good, the other the opposite [Plato] |
| 363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato] |
| 146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |
| 2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
| 13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
| 2057 | There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato] |
| 2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |