48 ideas
| 7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
| 8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
| 7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
| 8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
| 7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 4483 | If abstract terms are sets of tropes, 'being a unicorn' and 'being a griffin' turn out identical [Loux] |
| 4481 | Austere nominalists insist that the realist's universals lack the requisite independent identifiability [Loux] |
| 4477 | Universals come in hierarchies of generality [Loux] |
| 4482 | Austere nominalism has to take a host of things (like being red, or human) as primitive [Loux] |
| 4478 | Nominalism needs to account for abstract singular terms like 'circularity'. [Loux] |
| 4480 | Times and places are identified by objects, so cannot be used in a theory of object-identity [Loux] |
| 7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
| 23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
| 8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
| 21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
| 7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
| 7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
| 8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
| 8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
| 8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
| 8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
| 8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
| 8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
| 8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
| 8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
| 8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
| 8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
| 7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
| 8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
| 8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
| 7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
| 8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
| 7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
| 7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| 7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |