51 ideas
21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
18739 | Three stages of philosophical logic: syntactic (1905-55), possible worlds (1963-85), widening (1990-) [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18741 | Logical formalization makes concepts precise, and also shows their interrelation [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18744 | Models are sets with functions and relations, and truth built up from the components [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
18740 | If 'exist' doesn't express a property, we can hardly ask for its essence [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
18745 | A Tarskian model can be seen as a possible state of affairs [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18747 | The 'spheres model' was added to possible worlds, to cope with counterfactuals [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18748 | Epistemic logic introduced impossible worlds [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18746 | Possible worlds models contain sets of possible worlds; this is a large metaphysical commitment [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
18750 | Using possible worlds for knowledge and morality may be a step too far [Horsten/Pettigrew] |
1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |
1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |