141 ideas
| 19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
| 7170 | 'Wisdom' attempts to get beyond perspectives, making it hostile to life [Nietzsche] |
| 7167 | Words such as 'I' and 'do' and 'done to' are placed at the point where our ignorance begins [Nietzsche] |
| 7196 | Pessimism is laughable, because the world cannot be evaluated [Nietzsche] |
| 7137 | Is a 'philosopher' now impossible, because knowledge is too vast for an overview? [Nietzsche] |
| 7132 | Philosophers should create and fight for their concepts, not just clean and clarify them [Nietzsche] |
| 11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
| 1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| 1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| 8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
| 4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
| 13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| 7188 | Logic tries to understand the world according to a man-made scheme [Nietzsche] |
| 7144 | Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist [Nietzsche] |
| 7145 | Logic is not driven by truth, but desire for a simple single viewpoint [Nietzsche] |
| 4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
| 11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
| 7207 | Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I' [Nietzsche] |
| 14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
| 7153 | We can't be realists, because we don't know what being is [Nietzsche] |
| 7174 | Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs [Nietzsche] |
| 7175 | Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories [Nietzsche] |
| 11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
| 11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
| 11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
| 11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
| 10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
| 14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
| 11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
| 7189 | Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects [Nietzsche] |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
| 11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
| 13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| 14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
| 11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
| 11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
| 11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
| 11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
| 7161 | The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
| 11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
| 11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
| 11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
| 11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
| 11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
| 11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
| 11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
| 11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
| 11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
| 7134 | Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true [Nietzsche] |
| 7186 | There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true [Nietzsche] |
| 11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
| 11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
| 5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
| 7154 | We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge! [Nietzsche] |
| 7146 | Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind [Nietzsche] |
| 11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| 7156 | Sense perceptions contain values (useful, so pleasant) [Nietzsche] |
| 7181 | Pain shows the value of the damage, not what has been damaged [Nietzsche] |
| 7129 | Perception is unconscious, and we are only conscious of processed perceptions [Nietzsche] |
| 23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| 16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| 7149 | Comprehending everything is impossible, because it abolishes perspectives [Nietzsche] |
| 7169 | Is the perspectival part of the essence, or just a relation between beings? [Nietzsche] |
| 7183 | 'Subjectivity' is an interpretation, since subjects (and interpreters) are fictions [Nietzsche] |
| 7182 | 'Perspectivism': the world has no meaning, but various interpretations give it countless meanings [Nietzsche] |
| 7133 | It is tempting to think many eyes means many truths - so not truth [Nietzsche] |
| 16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
| 11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| 7139 | Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly [Nietzsche] |
| 3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
| 12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| 11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
| 7131 | The intellect and senses are a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
| 7152 | With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad [Nietzsche] |
| 7130 | Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool [Nietzsche] |
| 7155 | Consciousness exists to the extent that consciousness is useful [Nietzsche] |
| 7143 | Consciousness is a 'tool' - just as the stomach is a tool [Nietzsche] |
| 7157 | We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath [Nietzsche] |
| 7148 | The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being [Nietzsche] |
| 7138 | The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable' [Nietzsche] |
| 7135 | 'Freedom of will' is the feeling of having a dominating force [Nietzsche] |
| 7171 | Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away [Nietzsche] |
| 23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
| 11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| 7209 | There is no will; weakness of will is splitting of impulses, strong will is coordination under one impulse [Nietzsche] |
| 7194 | Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly [Nietzsche] |
| 7136 | Morality is a system of values which accompanies a being's life [Nietzsche] |
| 7163 | Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin [Nietzsche] |
| 7147 | Values are innate and inherited [Nietzsche] |
| 7190 | Our values express an earlier era's conditions for survival and growth [Nietzsche] |
| 6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
| 7201 | Knowledge, wisdom and goodness only have value relative to a goal [Nietzsche] |
| 7205 | Altruism is praised by the egoism of the weak, who want everyone to be looked after [Nietzsche] |
| 7141 | A living being is totally 'egoistic' [Nietzsche] |
| 7168 | Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad' [Nietzsche] |
| 7159 | The only happiness is happiness with illusion [Nietzsche] |
| 7197 | Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche] |
| 7165 | Virtue is wasteful, as it reduces us all to being one another's nurse [Nietzsche] |
| 7193 | Virtue for everyone removes its charm of being exceptional and aristocratic [Nietzsche] |
| 7191 | What does not kill us makes us stronger [Nietzsche] |
| 7151 | Courage, compassion, insight, solitude are the virtues, with courtesy a necessary vice [Nietzsche] |
| 7185 | Replace the categorical imperative by the natural imperative [Nietzsche] |
| 7164 | Not feeling harnessed to a system of 'ends' is a wonderful feeling of freedom [Nietzsche] |
| 7198 | Nihilism results from measuring the world by our categories which are purely invented [Nietzsche] |
| 7150 | By developing herd virtues man fixes what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal' [Nietzsche] |
| 7177 | Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within [Nietzsche] |
| 7172 | Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought [Nietzsche] |
| 7166 | Man is above all a judging animal [Nietzsche] |
| 7204 | The upholding of the military state is needed to maintain the strong human type [Nietzsche] |
| 7173 | Rights arise out of contracts, which need a balance of power [Nietzsche] |
| 11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
| 3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 7176 | 'Purpose' is like the sun, where most heat is wasted, and a tiny part has 'purpose' [Nietzsche] |
| 7195 | If the world aimed at an end, it would have reached it by now [Nietzsche] |
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| 12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| 11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
| 7206 | Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions [Nietzsche] |
| 7140 | Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger [Nietzsche] |
| 7142 | All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power [Nietzsche] |
| 7178 | The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! [Nietzsche] |
| 7179 | Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution [Nietzsche] |
| 7180 | Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances' [Nietzsche] |
| 7192 | Remove goodness and wisdom from our concept of God. Being the highest power is enough! [Nietzsche] |
| 7158 | Morality kills religion, because a Christian-moral God is unbelievable [Nietzsche] |
| 7199 | It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable [Nietzsche] |
| 22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 7208 | Paganism is a form of thanking and affirming life? [Nietzsche] |
| 7160 | Christian belief is kept alive because it is soothing - the proof based on pleasure [Nietzsche] |
| 7203 | In heaven all the interesting men are missing [Nietzsche] |
| 7200 | A combination of great power and goodness would mean the disastrous abolition of evil [Nietzsche] |