100 ideas
19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
19073 | True philosophy aims at absolute unity, while our understanding sees only separation [Hegel] |
15624 | Free thinking has no presuppositions [Hegel] |
15631 | The ideal of reason is the unification of abstract identity (or 'concept') and being [Hegel] |
15612 | Older metaphysics naively assumed that thought grasped things in themselves [Hegel] |
21768 | Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts [Hegel] |
21984 | We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed [Hegel] |
1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
22081 | Let thought follow its own course, and don't interfere [Hegel] |
1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
15626 | Categories create objective experience, but are too conditioned by things to actually grasp them [Hegel] |
15616 | If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory [Hegel] |
15615 | Older metaphysics became dogmatic, by assuming opposed assertions must be true and false [Hegel] |
21767 | Dialectic is seen in popular proverbs like 'pride comes before a fall' [Hegel] |
15638 | Dialectic is the moving soul of scientific progression, the principle which binds science together [Hegel] |
15639 | Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective [Hegel] |
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] |
19070 | Superficial truth is knowing how something is, which is consciousness of bare correctness [Hegel] |
5644 | In Hegel's logic it is concepts (rather than judgements or propositions) which are true or false [Hegel, by Scruton] |
19072 | In the deeper sense of truth, to be untrue resembles being bad; badness is untrue to a thing's nature [Hegel] |
19071 | The deeper sense of truth is a thing matching the idea of what it ought to be [Hegel] |
13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
21595 | Excluded middle is the maxim of definite understanding, but just produces contradictions [Hegel] |
4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
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] |
1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
15628 | The idea that contradiction is essential to rational understanding is a key modern idea [Hegel] |
15629 | Tenderness for the world solves the antinomies; contradiction is in our reason, not in the essence of the world [Hegel] |
15630 | Antinomies are not just in four objects, but in all objects, all representations, all objects and all ideas [Hegel] |
1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [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] |
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] |
4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [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] |
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] |
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] |
22078 | Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel] |
15634 | Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel] |
1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
21981 | The one substance is formless without the mediation of dialectical concepts [Hegel] |
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] |
15637 | Essence is the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation [Hegel] |
15613 | Real cognition grasps a thing from within itself, and is not satisfied with mere predicates [Hegel] |
8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
15636 | The Cogito is at the very centre of the entire concern of modern philosophy [Hegel] |
18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
22300 | Existence is just a set of relationships [Hegel] |
11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
15609 | The sensible is distinguished from thought by being about singular things [Hegel] |
15625 | Sense perception is secondary and dependent, while thought is independent and primitive [Hegel] |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
15620 | Empiricism contains the important idea that we should see knowledge for ourselves, and be part of it [Hegel] |
15619 | Empiricism made particular knowledge possible, and blocked wild claims [Hegel] |
15622 | Empiricism unknowingly contains and uses a metaphysic, which underlies its categories [Hegel] |
15621 | Empiricism of the finite denies the supersensible, and can only think with formal abstraction [Hegel] |
15632 | The Humean view stops us thinking about perception, and finding universals and necessities in it [Hegel] |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
15623 | Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic [Hegel] |
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] |
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] |
15617 | In abstraction, beyond finitude, freedom and necessity must exist together [Hegel] |
15608 | The act of thinking is the bringing forth of universals [Hegel] |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
21986 | Hegel's system has a vast number of basic concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
15607 | We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts [Hegel] |
15610 | Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it [Hegel] |
1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
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] |
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] |
15614 | Old metaphysics tried to grasp eternal truths through causal events, which is impossible [Hegel] |
15635 | The older conception of God was emptied of human features, to make it worthy of the Infinite [Hegel] |
21980 | God is the absolute thing, and also the absolute person [Hegel] |
15618 | If God is the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God is a mere Beyond, and unknowable [Hegel] |
15633 | We establish unification of the Ideal by the ontological proof, deriving being from abstraction of thinking [Hegel] |
22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |