Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Wolff', 'Philosophical Insignificance of A Priori Knowledge' and 'fragments/reports'

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23 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
13407 All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
1553 No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
13409 Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
13191 The properties of a thing flow from its essence [Leibniz]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
1549 Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
13406 A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
13408 Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
1545 Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
1547 Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras]
3305 There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
3313 If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
3317 You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
247 God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras]
606 Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras]
612 Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
13410 Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
6016 Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 1. Contractarianism
1580 For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / d. Teaching virtue
205 Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras]
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / b. Retribution for crime
1659 Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
532 Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
1552 He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
1551 He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras]