53 ideas
| 21887 | Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida] |
| 21888 | Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida] |
| 21896 | Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May] |
| 21893 | Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida] |
| 21892 | Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida] |
| 20925 | Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
| 20934 | Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
| 21895 | Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida] |
| 21934 | The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| 21883 | Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida] |
| 21882 | Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida] |
| 21881 | We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida] |
| 4756 | Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel] |
| 21877 | True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida] |
| 21889 | 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida] |
| 21878 | Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida] |
| 21879 | Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 21890 | Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 20429 | Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them [Fry] |
| 21880 | 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida] |
| 21886 | Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida] |
| 21930 | For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida] |
| 21884 | Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida] |
| 21935 | The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida] |
| 21933 | Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| 21894 | Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida] |
| 21931 | 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| 21885 | Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida] |
| 20424 | Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry] |
| 20427 | Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry] |
| 20433 | 'Beauty' can either mean sensuous charm, or the aesthetic approval of art (which may be ugly) [Fry] |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| 20431 | Art needs a mixture of order and variety in its sensations [Fry] |
| 20423 | If graphic arts only aim at imitation, their works are only trivial ingenious toys [Fry] |
| 20428 | Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything! [Fry] |
| 20432 | When viewing art, rather than flowers, we are aware of purpose, and sympathy with its creator [Fry] |
| 20425 | In the cinema the emotions are weaker, but much clearer than in ordinary life [Fry] |
| 20426 | For pure moralists art must promote right action, and not just be harmless [Fry] |
| 21891 | The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida] |