204 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] |
15209 | Like disastrous small errors in navigation, small misunderstandings can wreck intellectual life [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15215 | Philosophy devises and assesses conceptual schemes in the service of worldviews [Harré/Madden] |
7132 | Philosophers should create and fight for their concepts, not just clean and clarify them [Nietzsche] |
15212 | Analysis of concepts based neither on formalism nor psychology can arise from examining what we know [Harré/Madden] |
15210 | Humeans see analysis in terms of formal logic, because necessities are fundamentally logical relations [Harré/Madden] |
15236 | Positivism says science only refers to immediate experiences [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15227 | Logically, definitions have a subject, and a set of necessary predicates [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
7145 | Logic is not driven by truth, but desire for a simple single viewpoint [Nietzsche] |
7144 | Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist [Nietzsche] |
4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
15273 | Points can be 'dense' by unending division, but must meet a tougher criterion to be 'continuous' [Harré/Madden] |
15274 | Points are 'continuous' if any 'cut' point participates in both halves of the cut [Harré/Madden] |
7207 | Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I' [Nietzsche] |
15211 | There is not an exclusive dichotomy between the formal and the logical [Harré/Madden] |
15261 | Humeans can only explain change with continuity as successive replacement [Harré/Madden] |
15268 | Humeans construct their objects from events, but we construct events from objects [Harré/Madden] |
15257 | The induction problem fades if you work with things, rather than with events [Harré/Madden] |
15300 | Fundamental particulars can't change [Harré/Madden] |
15319 | Hard individual blocks don't fix what 'things' are; fluids are no less material things [Harré/Madden] |
15320 | Magnetic and gravity fields can occupy the same place without merging [Harré/Madden] |
7153 | We can't be realists, because we don't know what being is [Nietzsche] |
15318 | Gravitational and electrical fields are, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material [Harré/Madden] |
15267 | Events are changes in states of affairs (which consist of structured particulars, with powers and relations) [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15281 | Humeans see predicates as independent, but science says they are connected [Harré/Madden] |
15279 | Energy was introduced to physics to refer to the 'store of potency' of a moving ball [Harré/Madden] |
15276 | Some powers need a stimulus, but others are just released [Harré/Madden] |
15305 | Some powers are variable, others cannot change (without destroying an identity) [Harré/Madden] |
15218 | Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden] |
15302 | We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden] |
15303 | Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden] |
15258 | Powers are not qualities; they just point to directions of empirical investigation [Harré/Madden] |
15315 | What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden] |
7189 | Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects [Nietzsche] |
15272 | The good criticism of substance by Humeans also loses them the vital concept of a thing [Harré/Madden] |
15304 | We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15309 | The assumption that shape and solidity are fundamental implies dubious 'substance' in bodies [Harré/Madden] |
15264 | The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden] |
15262 | In logic the nature of a kind, substance or individual is the essence which is inseparable from what it is [Harré/Madden] |
15297 | We can infer a new property of a thing from its other properties, via its essential nature [Harré/Madden] |
7161 | The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing' [Nietzsche] |
15266 | We say the essence of particles is energy, but only so we can tell a story about the nature of things [Harré/Madden] |
15220 | To say something remains the same but lacks its capacities and powers seems a contradiction [Harré/Madden] |
15222 | Some individuals can gain or lose capacities or powers, without losing their identity [Harré/Madden] |
15296 | A particular might change all of its characteristics, retaining mere numerical identity [Harré/Madden] |
15275 | 'Dense' time raises doubts about continuous objects, so they need 'continuous' time [Harré/Madden] |
15271 | If things are successive instantaneous events, nothing requires those events to resemble one another [Harré/Madden] |
15256 | Humeans cannot step in the same river twice, because they cannot strictly form the concept of 'river' [Harré/Madden] |
7134 | Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true [Nietzsche] |
15290 | What reduces the field of the possible is a step towards necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15291 | There is 'absolute' necessity (implied by all propositions) and 'relative' necessity (from what is given) [Harré/Madden] |
15230 | Logical necessity is grounded in the logical form of a statement [Harré/Madden] |
15221 | The relation between what a thing is and what it can do or undergo relate by natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15214 | Natural necessity is not logical necessity or empirical contingency in disguise [Harré/Madden] |
15232 | Natural necessity is when powerful particulars must produce certain results in a situation [Harré/Madden] |
15288 | People doubt science because if it isn't logically necessary it seems to be absolutely contingent [Harré/Madden] |
15289 | Property or event relations are naturally necessary if generated by essential mechanisms [Harré/Madden] |
15224 | A necessity corresponds to the nature of the actual [Harré/Madden] |
15231 | Transcendental necessity is conditions of a world required for a rational being to know its nature [Harré/Madden] |
15234 | There is a transcendental necessity for each logical necessity, but the transcendental extends further [Harré/Madden] |
7186 | There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true [Nietzsche] |
15260 | Counterfactuals are just right for analysing statements about the powers which things have [Harré/Madden] |
15233 | If natural necessity is used to include or exclude some predicate, the predicate is conceptually necessary [Harré/Madden] |
15242 | Having a child is contingent for a 'man', necessary for a 'father'; the latter reflects a necessity of nature [Harré/Madden] |
15216 | Is conceptual necessity just conventional, or does it mirror something about nature? [Harré/Madden] |
15235 | There is a conceptual necessity when properties become a standard part of a nominal essence [Harré/Madden] |
15228 | Necessity and contingency are separate from the a priori and the a posteriori [Harré/Madden] |
15252 | If Goldbach's Conjecture is true (and logically necessary), we may be able to conceive its opposite [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15245 | It is silly to say that direct experience must be justified, either by reason, or by more experience [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15244 | We experience qualities as of objects, not on their own [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15248 | Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden] |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
15269 | Humean impressions are too instantaneous and simple to have structure or relations [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
7182 | 'Perspectivism': the world has no meaning, but various interpretations give it countless meanings [Nietzsche] |
7183 | 'Subjectivity' is an interpretation, since subjects (and interpreters) are fictions [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] |
15286 | Clavius's Paradox: purely syntactic entailment theories won't explain, because they are too profuse [Harré/Madden] |
15283 | Simplicity can sort theories out, but still leaves an infinity of possibilities [Harré/Madden] |
15316 | The powers/natures approach has been so successful (for electricity, magnetism, gravity) it may be universal [Harré/Madden] |
15298 | We prefer the theory which explains and predicts the powers and capacities of particulars [Harré/Madden] |
15225 | Science investigates the nature and constitution of things or substances [Harré/Madden] |
15255 | Conjunctions explain nothing, and so do not give a reason for confidence in inductions [Harré/Madden] |
15270 | Hume's atomic events makes properties independent, and leads to problems with induction [Harré/Madden] |
15284 | Contraposition may be equivalent in truth, but not true in nature, because of irrelevant predicates [Harré/Madden] |
15285 | The items put forward by the contraposition belong within different natural clusters [Harré/Madden] |
15287 | The possibility that all ravens are black is a law depends on a mechanism producing the blackness [Harré/Madden] |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
15306 | Only changes require explanation [Harré/Madden] |
7139 | Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly [Nietzsche] |
15293 | If explanation is by entailment, that lacks a causal direction, unlike natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15294 | Powers can explain the direction of causality, and make it a natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
15254 | If the nature of particulars explains their powers, it also explains their relations and behaviour [Harré/Madden] |
15317 | Powers and natures lead us to hypothesise underlying mechanisms, which may be real [Harré/Madden] |
15310 | Solidity comes from the power of repulsion, and shape from the power of attraction [Harré/Madden] |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
15219 | Essence explains passive capacities as well as active powers [Harré/Madden] |
7131 | The intellect and senses are a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
7152 | With protoplasm ˝+˝=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] |
15301 | The very concepts of a particular power or nature imply the possibility of being generalised [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15226 | What properties a thing must have to be a type of substance can be laid down a priori [Harré/Madden] |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
15229 | We say there is 'no alternative' in all sorts of contexts, and there are many different grounds for it [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15292 | We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15299 | Species do not have enough constancy to be natural kinds [Harré/Madden] |
15253 | If the concept of a cause includes its usual effects, we call it a 'power' [Harré/Madden] |
15278 | Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden] |
15246 | Active causal power is just objects at work, not something existing in itself [Harré/Madden] |
15213 | Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden] |
15217 | Efficient causes combine stimulus to individuals, absence of contraints on activity [Harré/Madden] |
15277 | The cause (or part of it) is what stimulates or releases the powerful particular thing involved [Harré/Madden] |
15237 | Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden] |
15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
15223 | Necessary effects will follow from some general theory specifying powers and structure of a world [Harré/Madden] |
15241 | Humeans say there is no necessity in causation, because denying an effect is never self-contradictory [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15240 | In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds [Harré/Madden] |
15239 | We could call any generalisation a law, if it had reasonable support and no counter-evidence [Harré/Madden] |
15243 | We perceive motion, and not just successive occupations of different positions [Harré/Madden] |
15265 | 'Energy' is a quasi-substance invented as the bearer of change during interactions [Harré/Madden] |
15280 | 'Kinetic energy' is used to explain the effects of moving things when they are stopped [Harré/Madden] |
15321 | Space can't be an individual (in space), but it is present in all places [Harré/Madden] |
15259 | Chemical atoms have two powers: to enter certain combinations, and to emit a particular spectrum [Harré/Madden] |
15263 | Chemistry is not purely structural; CO2 is not the same as SO2 [Harré/Madden] |
7179 | Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution [Nietzsche] |
7178 | The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! [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] |
15295 | Theism is supposed to make the world more intelligible - and should offer results [Harré/Madden] |
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] |