112 ideas
| 19359 | Leibniz aims to give coherent rational support for empiricism [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
| 2512 | Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language [Wittgenstein] |
| 4148 | What is your aim in philosophy? - To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle [Wittgenstein] |
| 13086 | Metaphysics is a science of the intelligible nature of being [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 16710 | Leibniz tried to combine mechanistic physics with scholastic metaphysics [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
| 22490 | Bring words back from metaphysics to everyday use [Wittgenstein] |
| 16897 | Reason is the faculty for grasping apriori necessary truths [Leibniz, by Burge] |
| 3346 | For Leibniz rationality is based on non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
| 3347 | Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
| 6566 | The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein] |
| 8627 | Leibniz is inclined to regard all truths as provable [Leibniz, by Frege] |
| 18743 | Wittgenstein says we want the grammar of problems, not their first-order logical structure [Wittgenstein, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| 4139 | Naming is a preparation for description [Wittgenstein] |
| 4946 | A name is not determined by a description, but by a cluster or family [Wittgenstein, by Kripke] |
| 9147 | Number cannot be defined as addition of ones, since that needs the number; it is a single act of abstraction [Fine,K on Leibniz] |
| 19375 | The continuum is not divided like sand, but folded like paper [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
| 18080 | A tangent is a line connecting two points on a curve that are infinitely close together [Leibniz] |
| 18081 | Nature uses the infinite everywhere [Leibniz] |
| 21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
| 7565 | Leibniz proposes monads, since there must be basic things, which are immaterial in order to have unity [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 10419 | If relations can be reduced to, or supervene on, monadic properties of relata, they are not real [Leibniz, by Swoyer] |
| 13078 | Relations aren't in any monad, so they are distributed, so they are not real [Leibniz] |
| 12713 | Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber] |
| 13087 | The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 12701 | Leibniz moved from individuation by whole entity to individuation by substantial form [Leibniz, by Garber] |
| 13105 | The laws-of-the-series plays a haecceitist role [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 16513 | Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz] |
| 12035 | Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM] |
| 13091 | Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 7561 | Substances are essentially active [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 12715 | Leibniz strengthened hylomorphism by connecting it to force in physics [Leibniz, by Garber] |
| 15106 | Essence is expressed by grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| 11878 | Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P] |
| 11862 | Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins] |
| 16504 | Two eggs can't be identical, because the same truths can't apply to both of them [Leibniz] |
| 8650 | Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz] |
| 13828 | Necessary truths are those provable from identities by pure logic in finite steps [Leibniz, by Hacking] |
| 13084 | How can things be incompatible, if all positive terms seem to be compatible? [Leibniz] |
| 4307 | A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist [Leibniz] |
| 15883 | Leibniz narrows down God's options to one, by non-contradiction, sufficient reason, indiscernibles, compossibility [Leibniz, by Harré] |
| 18822 | Each monad expresses all its compatible monads; a possible world is the resulting equivalence class [Leibniz, by Rumfitt] |
| 7837 | Leibniz proposed possible worlds, because they might be evil, where God would not create evil things [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
| 13080 | Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 19332 | For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
| 6600 | The belief that fire burns is like the fear that it burns [Wittgenstein] |
| 4153 | Are sense-data the material of which the universe is made? [Wittgenstein] |
| 5509 | Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 7568 | Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 6501 | As sense-data are necessarily private, they are attacked by Wittgenstein's objections [Wittgenstein, by Robinson,H] |
| 11079 | How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein] |
| 4160 | One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own beliefs [Wittgenstein] |
| 13092 | The essence of substance is the law of its changes, as in the series of numbers [Leibniz] |
| 19273 | I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein] |
| 5663 | It is irresponsible to generalise from my own case of pain to other people's [Wittgenstein] |
| 19272 | To imagine another's pain by my own, I must imagine a pain I don't feel, by one I do feel [Wittgenstein] |
| 19354 | Leibniz introduced the idea of degrees of consciousness, essential for his monads [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
| 4161 | If a lion could talk, we could not understand him [Wittgenstein] |
| 7392 | If a lion could talk, it would be nothing like other lions [Dennett on Wittgenstein] |
| 5676 | To say that I 'know' I am in pain means nothing more than that I AM in pain [Wittgenstein] |
| 7841 | We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz] |
| 5510 | Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
| 7564 | Occasionalism give a false view of natural laws, miracles, and substances [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 4154 | Why are we not aware of the huge gap between mind and brain in ordinary life? [Wittgenstein] |
| 4158 | An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria [Wittgenstein] |
| 6165 | Every course of action can either accord or conflict with a rule, so there is no accord or conflict [Wittgenstein] |
| 4143 | One cannot obey a rule 'privately', because that is a practice, not the same as thinking one is obeying [Wittgenstein] |
| 7092 | If individuals can't tell if they are following a rule, how does a community do it? [Grayling on Wittgenstein] |
| 4138 | Is white simple, or does it consist of the colours of the rainbow? [Wittgenstein] |
| 7055 | Externalist accounts of mental content begin in Wittgenstein [Wittgenstein, by Heil] |
| 19372 | Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
| 12576 | Possessing a concept is knowing how to go on [Wittgenstein, by Peacocke] |
| 4157 | Concepts direct our interests and investigations, and express those interests [Wittgenstein] |
| 12606 | Man learns the concept of the past by remembering [Wittgenstein] |
| 4141 | Various games have a 'family resemblance', as their similarities overlap and criss-cross [Wittgenstein] |
| 23450 | Wittgenstein rejected his earlier view that the form of language is the form of the world [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
| 4150 | Asking about verification is only one way of asking about the meaning of a proposition [Wittgenstein] |
| 6567 | For Wittgenstein, words are defined by their use, just as chess pieces are [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
| 6169 | We do not achieve meaning and understanding in our heads, but in the world [Wittgenstein, by Rowlands] |
| 4155 | We all seem able to see quite clearly how sentences represent things when we use them [Wittgenstein] |
| 4137 | In the majority of cases the meaning of a word is its use in the language [Wittgenstein] |
| 13467 | Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD] |
| 4142 | To understand a sentence means to understand a language [Wittgenstein] |
| 4149 | We don't have 'meanings' in our minds in addition to verbal expressions [Wittgenstein] |
| 4156 | Make the following experiment: say "It's cold here" and mean "It's warm here" [Wittgenstein] |
| 4145 | How do words refer to sensations? [Wittgenstein] |
| 4140 | The standard metre in Paris is neither one metre long nor not one metre long [Wittgenstein] |
| 6166 | Was Wittgenstein's problem between individual and community, or between occasions for an individual? [Rowlands on Wittgenstein] |
| 7875 | If a brilliant child invented a name for a private sensation, it couldn't communicate it [Wittgenstein] |
| 4146 | We cannot doublecheck mental images for correctness (or confirm news with many copies of the paper) [Wittgenstein] |
| 4147 | If we only named pain by our own case, it would be like naming beetles by looking in a private box [Wittgenstein] |
| 5659 | If the reference is private, that is incompatible with the sense being public [Wittgenstein, by Scruton] |
| 4152 | Getting from perceptions to words cannot be a private matter; the rules need an institution of use [Wittgenstein] |
| 4136 | To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life [Wittgenstein] |
| 4144 | Common human behaviour enables us to interpret an unknown language [Wittgenstein] |
| 11049 | To communicate, language needs agreement in judgment as well as definition [Wittgenstein] |
| 6658 | What is left over if I subtract my arm going up from my raising my arm? [Wittgenstein] |
| 19365 | Limited awareness leads to bad choices, and unconscious awareness makes us choose the bad [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
| 8110 | Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection [Leibniz, by Gardner] |
| 7569 | Humans are moral, and capable of reward and punishment, because of memory and self-consciousness [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 7574 | Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| 12728 | Leibniz rejected atoms, because they must be elastic, and hence have parts [Leibniz, by Garber] |
| 19374 | Microscopes and the continuum suggest that matter is endlessly divisible [Leibniz] |
| 7560 | Leibniz struggled to reconcile bodies with a reality of purely soul-like entities [Jolley on Leibniz] |
| 16683 | Leibniz eventually said resistance, rather than extension, was the essence of body [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
| 12725 | Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body [Leibniz, by Garber] |
| 16507 | The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature [Leibniz] |
| 7859 | Leibniz had an unusual commitment to the causal completeness of physics [Leibniz, by Papineau] |
| 15307 | Leibniz uses 'force' to mean both activity and potential [Leibniz] |
| 3889 | God's existence is either necessary or impossible [Leibniz, by Scruton] |
| 7842 | Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
| 4151 | Grammar tells what kind of object anything is - and theology is a kind of grammar [Wittgenstein] |
| 4159 | The human body is the best picture of the human soul [Wittgenstein] |