64 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [Plato] |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
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] |