85 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
24047 | An account is either a definition or a demonstration [Aristotle] |
24052 | From one thing alone we can infer its contrary [Aristotle] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
1729 | We perceive number by the denial of continuity [Aristotle] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
24057 | What is prior is always potentially present in what is next in order [Aristotle] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
16752 | Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
24058 | The substance is the cause of a thing's being [Aristotle] |
24055 | Matter is potential, form is actual [Aristotle] |
24040 | Scientists explain anger by the matter, dialecticians by the form and the account [Aristotle] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
5051 | The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
17711 | Our minds take on the form of what is being perceived [Aristotle, by Mares] |
1725 | Why can't we sense the senses? And why do senses need stimuli? [Aristotle] |
1732 | Sense organs aren't the end of sensation, or they would know what does the sensing [Aristotle] |
16723 | Perception of sensible objects is virtually never wrong [Aristotle] |
1724 | Perception necessitates pleasure and pain, which necessitates appetite [Aristotle] |
1730 | Why do we have many senses, and not just one? [Aristotle] |
1728 | Many objects of sensation are common to all the senses [Aristotle] |
1727 | Some objects of sensation are unique to one sense, where deception is impossible [Aristotle] |
1734 | In moral thought images are essential, to be pursued or avoided [Aristotle] |
1726 | We may think when we wish, but not perceive, because universals are within the mind [Aristotle] |
16647 | Demonstration starts from a definition of essence, so we can derive (or conjecture about) the properties [Aristotle] |
24048 | Demonstrations move from starting-points to deduced conclusions [Aristotle] |
16646 | To understand a triangle summing to two right angles, we need to know the essence of a line [Aristotle] |
1714 | Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle] |
5507 | Aristotle led to the view that there are several souls, all somewhat physical [Aristotle, by Martin/Barresi] |
24051 | Soul is seen as what moves, or what is least physical, or a combination of elements [Aristotle] |
12086 | Psuché is the form and actuality of a body which potentially has life [Aristotle] |
16754 | The soul is the cause or source of movement, the essence of body, and its end [Aristotle] |
24046 | Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts [Aristotle] |
1717 | If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle] |
24053 | If a soul have parts, what unites them? [Aristotle] |
1721 | What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle] |
1735 | In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle] |
24061 | If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle] |
24062 | Self-moving animals must have desires, and that entails having imagination [Aristotle] |
1710 | Emotion involves the body, thinking uses the mind, imagination hovers between them [Aristotle] |
24039 | All the emotions seem to involve the body, simultaneously with the feeling [Aristotle] |
24056 | The soul (or parts of it) is not separable from the body [Aristotle] |
24050 | If soul is separate from body, why does it die when the body dies? [Aristotle] |
24049 | Thinkers place the soul within the body, but never explain how they are attached [Aristotle] |
1514 | Early thinkers concentrate on the soul but ignore the body, as if it didn't matter what body received the soul [Aristotle] |
2683 | Aristotle has a problem fitting his separate reason into the soul, which is said to be the form of the body [Ackrill on Aristotle] |
1718 | Does the mind think or pity, or does the whole man do these things? [Aristotle] |
13275 | The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle] |
1733 | Thinking is not perceiving, but takes the form of imagination and speculation [Aristotle] |
23307 | Aristotle makes belief a part of reason, but sees desires as separate [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
24060 | Self-controlled follow understanding, when it is opposed to desires [Aristotle] |
4376 | Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle] |
1740 | Nature does nothing in vain [Aristotle] |
6613 | The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis] |
6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
6615 | A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis] |
6614 | A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis] |
6612 | Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis] |
1739 | If all movement is either pushing or pulling, there must be a still point in between where it all starts [Aristotle] |
24045 | Movement is spatial, alteration, withering or growth [Aristotle] |
1738 | Practical reason is based on desire, so desire must be the ultimate producer of movement [Aristotle] |
24044 | Movement can be intrinsic (like a ship) or relative (like its sailors) [Aristotle] |
24064 | If something is pushed, it pushes back [Aristotle] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
24063 | What is born has growth, a prime, and a withering away [Aristotle] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |