41 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
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] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
9967 | 'Impure' sets have a concrete member, while 'pure' (abstract) sets do not [Jubien] |
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] |
9968 | A model is 'fundamental' if it contains only concrete entities [Jubien] |
1507 | We don't have time for infinite quantity, but we do for infinite divisibility, because time is also divisible [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
5109 | The fast runner must always reach the point from which the slower runner started [Zeno of Elea, by Aristotle] |
1512 | Zeno is wrong that one grain of millet makes a sound; why should one grain achieve what the whole bushel does? [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
1508 | Zeno's arrow paradox depends on the assumption that time is composed of nows [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
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] |
9965 | There couldn't just be one number, such as 17 [Jubien] |
9966 | The subject-matter of (pure) mathematics is abstract structure [Jubien] |
9964 | Since mathematical objects are essentially relational, they can't be picked out on their own [Jubien] |
9963 | If we all intuited mathematical objects, platonism would be agreed [Jubien] |
9962 | How can pure abstract entities give models to serve as interpretations? [Jubien] |
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] |
9969 | The empty set is the purest abstract object [Jubien] |
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] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
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] |
454 | If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them [Zeno of Elea] |
455 | That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not [Zeno of Elea] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
1511 | If everything is in a place, what is the place in? Place doesn't exist [Zeno of Elea, by Simplicius] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |