141 ideas
9199 | Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus] |
20853 | Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
21388 | The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20793 | How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus] |
8077 | Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
20791 | Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
8078 | Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
16059 | Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley] |
19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
20850 | Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
20869 | The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus] |
3044 | Stoics say that beauty and goodness are equivalent and linked [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
20838 | Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus] |
20813 | Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus] |
3045 | Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
20864 | Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus] |
19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
20856 | Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
1779 | We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20857 | Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
21403 | The later Stoics identified the logos with an air-fire compound, called 'pneuma' [Chrysippus, by Long] |
20828 | Fire is a separate element, not formed with others (as was previously believed) [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
5975 | Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |
20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
3048 | Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
5965 | The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus] |
3042 | Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |
21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |