87 ideas
| 5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
| 24047 | An account is either a definition or a demonstration [Aristotle] |
| 24052 | From one thing alone we can infer its contrary [Aristotle] |
| 1729 | We perceive number by the denial of continuity [Aristotle] |
| 24057 | What is prior is always potentially present in what is next in order [Aristotle] |
| 16752 | Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle] |
| 24058 | The substance is the cause of a thing's being [Aristotle] |
| 24055 | Matter is potential, form is actual [Aristotle] |
| 24040 | Scientists explain anger by the matter, dialecticians by the form and the account [Aristotle] |
| 5051 | The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle] |
| 1725 | Why can't we sense the senses? And why do senses need stimuli? [Aristotle] |
| 1730 | Why do we have many senses, and not just one? [Aristotle] |
| 17711 | Our minds take on the form of what is being perceived [Aristotle, by Mares] |
| 16723 | Perception of sensible objects is virtually never wrong [Aristotle] |
| 1724 | Perception necessitates pleasure and pain, which necessitates appetite [Aristotle] |
| 1732 | Sense organs aren't the end of sensation, or they would know what does the sensing [Aristotle] |
| 1728 | Many objects of sensation are common to all the senses [Aristotle] |
| 1727 | Some objects of sensation are unique to one sense, where deception is impossible [Aristotle] |
| 1734 | In moral thought images are essential, to be pursued or avoided [Aristotle] |
| 1726 | We may think when we wish, but not perceive, because universals are within the mind [Aristotle] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 24048 | Demonstrations move from starting-points to deduced conclusions [Aristotle] |
| 16647 | Demonstration starts from a definition of essence, so we can derive (or conjecture about) the properties [Aristotle] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 16646 | To understand a triangle summing to two right angles, we need to know the essence of a line [Aristotle] |
| 1714 | Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle] |
| 5507 | Aristotle led to the view that there are several souls, all somewhat physical [Aristotle, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 24051 | Soul is seen as what moves, or what is least physical, or a combination of elements [Aristotle] |
| 12086 | Psuché is the form and actuality of a body which potentially has life [Aristotle] |
| 16754 | The soul is the cause or source of movement, the essence of body, and its end [Aristotle] |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| 24046 | Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts [Aristotle] |
| 1717 | If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle] |
| 24053 | If a soul have parts, what unites them? [Aristotle] |
| 1721 | What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle] |
| 1735 | In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle] |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| 24061 | If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle] |
| 24062 | Self-moving animals must have desires, and that entails having imagination [Aristotle] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| 1710 | Emotion involves the body, thinking uses the mind, imagination hovers between them [Aristotle] |
| 24039 | All the emotions seem to involve the body, simultaneously with the feeling [Aristotle] |
| 24056 | The soul (or parts of it) is not separable from the body [Aristotle] |
| 24050 | If soul is separate from body, why does it die when the body dies? [Aristotle] |
| 24049 | Thinkers place the soul within the body, but never explain how they are attached [Aristotle] |
| 1514 | Early thinkers concentrate on the soul but ignore the body, as if it didn't matter what body received the soul [Aristotle] |
| 5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
| 5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
| 2683 | Aristotle has a problem fitting his separate reason into the soul, which is said to be the form of the body [Ackrill on Aristotle] |
| 1718 | Does the mind think or pity, or does the whole man do these things? [Aristotle] |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| 13275 | The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle] |
| 5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
| 1733 | Thinking is not perceiving, but takes the form of imagination and speculation [Aristotle] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 23307 | Aristotle makes belief a part of reason, but sees desires as separate [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
| 24060 | Self-controlled follow understanding, when it is opposed to desires [Aristotle] |
| 5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
| 5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
| 5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
| 4376 | Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle] |
| 1740 | Nature does nothing in vain [Aristotle] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| 1739 | If all movement is either pushing or pulling, there must be a still point in between where it all starts [Aristotle] |
| 24044 | Movement can be intrinsic (like a ship) or relative (like its sailors) [Aristotle] |
| 24045 | Movement is spatial, alteration, withering or growth [Aristotle] |
| 1738 | Practical reason is based on desire, so desire must be the ultimate producer of movement [Aristotle] |
| 24064 | If something is pushed, it pushes back [Aristotle] |
| 24063 | What is born has growth, a prime, and a withering away [Aristotle] |
| 5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |