49 ideas
| 23064 | So-called wisdom is just pondering things instead of acting [Cioran] |
| 2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
| 6848 | Humour is practically enacted philosophy [Critchley] |
| 6847 | Humour can give a phenomenological account of existence, and point to change [Critchley] |
| 23072 | Systems are the worst despotism, in philosophy and in life [Cioran] |
| 6844 | Scientism is the view that everything can be explained causally through scientific method [Critchley] |
| 6835 | German idealism aimed to find a unifying principle for Kant's various dualisms [Critchley] |
| 6837 | Since Hegel, continental philosophy has been linked with social and historical enquiry. [Critchley] |
| 6836 | Continental philosophy fights the threatened nihilism in the critique of reason [Critchley] |
| 6838 | Continental philosophy is based on critique, praxis and emancipation [Critchley] |
| 6845 | Continental philosophy has a bad tendency to offer 'one big thing' to explain everything [Critchley] |
| 6846 | Phenomenology is a technique of redescription which clarifies our social world [Critchley] |
| 23075 | A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran] |
| 2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
| 2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
| 23066 | Negation doesn't arise from reasoning, but from deep instincts [Cioran] |
| 23077 | The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran] |
| 2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| 2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
| 23073 | Convictions are failures to study anything thoroughly [Cioran] |
| 23078 | Opinions are fine, but having convictions means something has gone wrong [Cioran] |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| 2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
| 2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
| 2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
| 2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| 2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
| 2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
| 2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
| 2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
| 2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
| 2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
| 2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| 23071 | We could only be responsible if we had consented before birth to who we are [Cioran] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 6843 | Perceiving meaninglessness is an achievement, which can transform daily life [Critchley] |
| 23074 | In anxiety people cling to what reinforces it, because it is a deep need [Cioran] |
| 23069 | Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran] |
| 23062 | It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran] |
| 23067 | Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran] |
| 2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |
| 23063 | The first man obviously found paradise unendurable [Cioran] |