51 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
3847 | Man is nothing else but the sum of his actions [Sartre] |
3846 | Man IS freedom [Sartre] |
283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
3843 | There is no human nature [Sartre] |
20762 | There are no values to justify us, and no excuses [Sartre] |
3852 | If values depend on us, freedom is the foundation of all values [Sartre] |
20764 | In becoming what we want to be we create what we think man ought to be [Sartre] |
281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
3848 | Cowards are responsible for their cowardice [Sartre] |
20763 | When my personal freedom becomes involved, I must want freedom for everyone else [Sartre] |
22229 | Existentialists says that cowards and heroes make themselves [Sartre] |
3842 | Existence before essence (or begin with the subjective) [Sartre] |
6868 | 'Existence precedes essence' means we have no pre-existing self, but create it through existence [Sartre, by Le Poidevin] |
3844 | Existentialism says man is whatever he makes of himself [Sartre] |
20754 | It is dishonest to offer passions as an excuse [Sartre] |
6571 | When a man must choose between his mother and the Resistance, no theory can help [Sartre, by Fogelin] |
3851 | If I do not choose, that is still a choice [Sartre] |
22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |
3845 | Without God there is no intelligibility or value [Sartre] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |