52 ideas
354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible [Plato] |
370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife [Plato] |
16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument [Plato] |
17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? [Plato] |
16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato] |
1 | There is only one source for all beauty [Plato] |
368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them [Plato] |
16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
579 | Cratylus said you couldn't even step into the same river once [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers [Plato] |
16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
578 | Cratylus decided speech was hopeless, and his only expression was the movement of a finger [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them [Plato] |
13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato] |
364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another [Plato] |
16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato] |
13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! [Plato] |
369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force [Plato] |
363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato] |