272 ideas
| 21875 | The wisdom of a free man is a meditation on life, not on death [Spinoza] |
| 17230 | If we are not wholly wise, we should live by good rules and maxims [Spinoza] |
| 16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
| 16288 | Analysis reduces primitives and makes understanding explicit (without adding new knowledge) [Lewis] |
| 17200 | We must be careful to keep words distinct from ideas and images [Spinoza] |
| 17194 | Reason only explains what is universal, so it is timeless, under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
| 4840 | Reason perceives things under a certain form of eternity [Spinoza] |
| 17213 | In so far as men live according to reason, they will agree with one another [Spinoza] |
| 4819 | There is necessarily for each existent thing a cause why it should exist [Spinoza] |
| 21864 | Truth is its own standard [Spinoza] |
| 8018 | Spinoza's life shows that love of truth which he proclaims as the highest value [MacIntyre on Spinoza] |
| 9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
| 5641 | For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
| 4816 | A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object [Spinoza] |
| 20309 | If our ideas are adequate, what follows from them is also adequate [Spinoza] |
| 15731 | Quantification sometimes commits to 'sets', but sometimes just to pluralities (or 'classes') [Lewis] |
| 17185 | Mathematics deals with the essences and properties of forms [Spinoza] |
| 17222 | The sum of its angles follows from a triangle's nature [Spinoza] |
| 17197 | The idea of a triangle involves truths about it, so those are part of its essence [Spinoza] |
| 17174 | Outside the mind, there are just things and their properties [Spinoza] |
| 17176 | The more reality a thing has, the more attributes it has [Spinoza] |
| 10470 | There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 17179 | There must always be a reason or cause why some triangle does or does not exist [Spinoza] |
| 17186 | Men say they prefer order, not realising that we imagine the order [Spinoza] |
| 9650 | Supervenience concerns whether things could differ, so it is a modal notion [Lewis] |
| 20127 | Laws of nature are universal, so everything must be understood through those laws [Spinoza] |
| 8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
| 9057 | Vagueness is semantic indecision: we haven't settled quite what our words are meant to express [Lewis] |
| 9671 | Whether or not France is hexagonal depends on your standards of precision [Lewis] |
| 15751 | Surely 'slept in by Washington' is a property of some bed? [Lewis] |
| 15735 | Properties don't have degree; they are determinate, and things have varying relations to them [Lewis] |
| 9656 | The 'abundant' properties are just any bizarre property you fancy [Lewis] |
| 15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
| 17170 | An 'attribute' is what the intellect takes as constituting an essence [Spinoza] |
| 15742 | A disjunctive property can be unnatural, but intrinsic if its disjuncts are intrinsic [Lewis] |
| 15397 | If a global intrinsic never varies between possible duplicates, all necessary properties are intrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15398 | Global intrinsic may make necessarily coextensive properties both intrinsic or both extrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15741 | All of the natural properties are included among the intrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 15752 | We might try defining the natural properties by a short list of them [Lewis] |
| 14996 | Natural properties give similarity, joint carving, intrinsicness, specificity, homogeneity... [Lewis] |
| 15744 | We can't define natural properties by resemblance, if they are used to explain resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15743 | Defining natural properties by means of laws of nature is potentially circular [Lewis] |
| 15740 | I don't take 'natural' properties to be fixed by the nature of one possible world [Lewis] |
| 16262 | Sparse properties rest either on universals, or on tropes, or on primitive naturalness [Lewis, by Maudlin] |
| 17171 | A 'mode' is an aspect of a substance, and conceived through that substance [Spinoza] |
| 15739 | There is the property of belonging to a set, so abundant properties are as numerous as the sets [Lewis] |
| 10723 | A property is the set of its actual and possible instances [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 15399 | The property of being F is identical with the set of objects, in all possible worlds, which are F [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15732 | Properties don't seem to be sets, because different properties can have the same set [Lewis] |
| 15733 | Accidentally coextensive properties come apart when we include their possible instances [Lewis] |
| 15734 | If a property is relative, such as being a father or son, then set membership seems relative too [Lewis] |
| 9655 | Trilateral and triangular seem to be coextensive sets in all possible worlds [Lewis] |
| 16290 | I believe in properties, which are sets of possible individuals [Lewis] |
| 9653 | It would be easiest to take a property as the set of its instances [Lewis] |
| 9657 | You must accept primitive similarity to like tropes, but tropes give a good account of it [Lewis] |
| 15750 | Tropes need a similarity primitive, so they cannot be used to explain similarity [Lewis] |
| 15749 | Trope theory (unlike universals) needs a primitive notion of being duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15748 | Trope theory needs a primitive notion for what unites some tropes [Lewis] |
| 17195 | Things persevere through a force which derives from God [Spinoza] |
| 17206 | The essence of a thing is its effort to persevere [Spinoza] |
| 15745 | Universals recur, are multiply located, wholly present, make things overlap, and are held in common [Lewis] |
| 15746 | If particles were just made of universals, similar particles would be the same particle [Lewis] |
| 15747 | Universals aren't parts of things, because that relationship is transitive, and universals need not be [Lewis] |
| 17192 | The 'universal' term 'man' is just imagining whatever is the same in a multitude of men [Spinoza] |
| 17188 | A thing is unified if its parts produce a single effect [Spinoza] |
| 5639 | Spinoza implies that thought is impossible without the notion of substance [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
| 21857 | Substance is the power of self-actualisation [Spinoza, by Lord] |
| 4813 | Substance is that of which an independent conception can be formed [Spinoza] |
| 6019 | If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus] |
| 9667 | Mereological composition is unrestricted: any class of things has a mereological sum [Lewis] |
| 13268 | There are no restrictions on composition, because they would be vague, and composition can't be vague [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 4828 | The essence of a thing is what is required for it to exist or be conceived [Spinoza] |
| 17187 | Essence gives existence and conception to things, and is inseparable from them [Spinoza] |
| 13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
| 17191 | Nothing is essential if it is in every part, and is common to everything [Spinoza] |
| 17184 | All natures of things produce some effect [Spinoza] |
| 9663 | A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis] |
| 14737 | Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 9664 | Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis] |
| 9665 | There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis] |
| 17205 | Only an external cause can destroy something [Spinoza] |
| 19280 | I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis] |
| 15968 | Identity is simple - absolutely everything is self-identical, and nothing is identical to another thing [Lewis] |
| 15969 | Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis] |
| 17175 | There cannot be two substances with the same attributes [Spinoza] |
| 17173 | Two substances can't be the same if they have different attributes [Spinoza] |
| 17183 | Things are impossible if they imply contradiction, or their production lacks an external cause [Spinoza] |
| 4299 | Contingency is an illusion, resulting from our inadequate understanding [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
| 4824 | We only call things 'contingent' in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge [Spinoza] |
| 4839 | Reason naturally regards things as necessary, and only imagination considers them contingent [Spinoza] |
| 4822 | Divine nature makes all existence and operations necessary, and nothing is contingent [Spinoza] |
| 17182 | Necessity is in reference to essence or to cause [Spinoza] |
| 4818 | People who are ignorant of true causes imagine anything can change into anything else [Spinoza] |
| 20310 | Error does not result from imagining, but from lacking the evidence of impossibility [Spinoza] |
| 9660 | The impossible can be imagined as long as it is a bit vague [Lewis] |
| 9669 | There are no free-floating possibilia; they have mates in a world, giving them extrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
| 16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
| 16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
| 12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
| 9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
| 10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
| 16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
| 16284 | Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis] |
| 16286 | Linguistic possible worlds need a complete supply of unique names for each thing [Lewis] |
| 16287 | Maximal consistency for a world seems a modal distinction, concerning what could be true together [Lewis] |
| 9662 | Linguistic possible worlds have problems of inconsistencies, no indiscernibles, and vocabulary [Lewis] |
| 7690 | If sets exist, then defining worlds as proposition sets implies an odd distinction between existing and actual [Jacquette on Lewis] |
| 17208 | A horse would be destroyed if it were changed into a man or an insect [Spinoza] |
| 14404 | The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 5440 | A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner] |
| 5441 | Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis] |
| 16291 | In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis] |
| 11903 | Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider [Lewis, by Mackie,P] |
| 15129 | Haecceitism implies de re differences but qualitative identity [Lewis] |
| 9670 | Extreme haecceitism says you might possibly be a poached egg [Lewis] |
| 17209 | A thing is contingent if nothing in its essence determines whether or not it exists [Spinoza] |
| 5640 | Spinoza's three levels of knowledge are perception/imagination, then principles, then intuitions [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
| 17211 | Understanding is the sole aim of reason, and the only profit for the mind [Spinoza] |
| 21801 | Unlike Descartes' atomism, Spinoza held a holistic view of belief [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
| 17193 | True ideas intrinsically involve the highest degree of certainty [Spinoza] |
| 21863 | You only know you are certain of something when you actually are certain of it [Spinoza] |
| 17199 | A man who assents without doubt to a falsehood is not certain, but lacks a cause to make him waver [Spinoza] |
| 5638 | 'I think' is useless, because it is contingent, and limited to the first person [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
| 4831 | If the body is affected by an external object, the mind can't help believing that the object exists [Spinoza] |
| 4865 | The eyes of the mind are proofs [Spinoza] |
| 20306 | Once we have experienced two feelings together, one will always give rise to the other [Spinoza] |
| 4835 | Anyone who knows, must know that they know, and even know that they know that they know.. [Spinoza] |
| 20308 | Encounters with things confuse the mind, and internal comparisons bring clarity [Spinoza] |
| 16279 | General causal theories of knowledge are refuted by mathematics [Lewis] |
| 9661 | Induction is just reasonable methods of inferring the unobserved from the observed [Lewis] |
| 9652 | To just expect unexamined emeralds to be grue would be totally unreasonable [Lewis] |
| 4312 | To understand a phenomenon, we must understand why it is necessary, not merely contingent [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
| 9658 | An explanation tells us how an event was caused [Lewis] |
| 16280 | Often explanaton seeks fundamental laws, rather than causal histories [Lewis] |
| 16274 | If the well-ordering of a pack of cards was by shuffling, the explanation would make it more surprising [Lewis] |
| 4833 | The human mind is the very idea or knowledge of the human body [Spinoza] |
| 16198 | Knowledge is the essence of the mind [Spinoza] |
| 17198 | Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza] |
| 17201 | The will is finite, but the intellect is infinite [Spinoza] |
| 17196 | The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false [Spinoza] |
| 21805 | Spinoza held that the mind is just a bundle of ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
| 17204 | Animals are often observed to be wiser than people [Spinoza] |
| 17212 | To understand is the absolute virtue of the mind [Spinoza] |
| 21804 | Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas [Spinoza] |
| 4832 | If the body is affected by two things together, the imagining of one will conjure up the other [Spinoza] |
| 21869 | Our own force of persevering is nothing in comparison with external forces [Spinoza] |
| 20307 | As far as possible, everything tries to persevere [Spinoza] |
| 21803 | The conatus (striving) of mind and body together is appetite, which is the essence of man [Spinoza] |
| 4836 | The mind only knows itself by means of ideas of the modification of the body [Spinoza] |
| 21861 | Self-knowledge needs perception of the affections of the body [Spinoza] |
| 17216 | The poet who forgot his own tragedies was no longer the same man [Spinoza] |
| 4814 | A thing is free if it acts by necessity of its own nature, and the act is determined by itself alone [Spinoza] |
| 21802 | An act of will can only occur if it has been caused, which implies a regress of causes [Spinoza] |
| 4837 | 'Free will' is a misunderstanding arising from awareness of our actions, but ignorance of their causes [Spinoza] |
| 4843 | Would we die if we lacked free will, and were poised between equal foods? Yes! [Spinoza] |
| 4844 | The mind is not free to remember or forget anything [Spinoza] |
| 4311 | We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices [Spinoza] |
| 7828 | The actual world is the only one God could have created [Spinoza] |
| 21860 | Ideas and things have identical connections and order [Spinoza] |
| 4308 | Mind and body are one thing, seen sometimes as thought and sometimes as extension [Spinoza] |
| 4846 | We are incapable of formulating an idea which excludes the existence of our body [Spinoza] |
| 4834 | Mind and body are the same thing, sometimes seen as thought, and sometimes as extension [Spinoza] |
| 23951 | Emotion is a modification of bodily energy, controlling our actions [Spinoza] |
| 4849 | The three primary emotions are pleasure, pain and desire [Spinoza] |
| 23990 | The three primary emotions are pleasure, pain, and desire [Spinoza, by Goldie] |
| 17203 | Minds are subject to passions if they have inadequate ideas [Spinoza] |
| 4864 | An emotion is only bad if it hinders us from thinking [Spinoza] |
| 7832 | Stoics want to suppress emotions, but Spinoza overcomes them with higher emotions [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 4863 | An emotion comes more under our control in proportion to how well it is known to us [Spinoza] |
| 4841 | People make calculation mistakes by misjudging the figures, not calculating them wrongly [Spinoza] |
| 21807 | Ideas are powerful entities, which can produce further ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid] |
| 4830 | An 'idea' is a mental conception which is actively formed by the mind in thinking [Spinoza] |
| 4842 | Ideas are not images formed in the brain, but are the conceptions of thought [Spinoza] |
| 20311 | An idea involves affirmation or negation [Spinoza] |
| 8901 | Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively [Lewis] |
| 8904 | The Way of Abstraction says an incomplete description of a concrete entity is the complete abstraction [Lewis] |
| 8938 | The Way of Example compares donkeys and numbers, but what is the difference, and what are numbers? [Lewis] |
| 8903 | Abstracta can be causal: sets can be causes or effects; there can be universal effects; events may be sets [Lewis] |
| 8902 | If abstractions are non-spatial, then both sets and universals seem to have locations [Lewis] |
| 8905 | If universals or tropes are parts of things, then abstraction picks out those parts [Lewis] |
| 8906 | If we can abstract the extrinsic relations and features of objects, abstraction isn't universals or tropes [Lewis] |
| 8907 | The abstract direction of a line is the equivalence class of it and all lines parallel to it [Lewis] |
| 8908 | For most sets, the concept of equivalence is too artificial to explain abstraction [Lewis] |
| 16289 | We can't account for an abstraction as 'from' something if the something doesn't exist [Lewis] |
| 16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
| 9654 | A proposition is a set of entire possible worlds which instantiate a particular property [Lewis] |
| 15736 | A proposition is the property of being a possible world where it holds true [Lewis] |
| 15738 | Propositions can't have syntactic structure if they are just sets of worlds [Lewis] |
| 4838 | Claiming that actions depend on the will is meaningless; no one knows what the will is [Spinoza] |
| 4309 | Spinoza argues that in reality the will and the intellect are 'one and the same' [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
| 20305 | Whenever we act, then desire is our very essence [Spinoza] |
| 21868 | We love or hate people more strongly because we think they are free [Spinoza] |
| 17202 | We are the source of an action if only our nature can explain the action [Spinoza] |
| 21865 | We act when it follows from our nature, and is understood in that way [Spinoza] |
| 21873 | Men only agree in nature if they are guided by reason [Spinoza] |
| 21872 | We seek our own advantage, and virtue is doing this rationally [Spinoza] |
| 17189 | The essence of man is modifications of the nature of God [Spinoza] |
| 17207 | By 'good' I mean what brings us ever closer to our model of human nature [Spinoza] |
| 8019 | Along with his pantheism, Spinoza equates ethics with the study of human nature [Spinoza, by MacIntyre] |
| 17229 | If infancy in humans was very rare, we would consider it a pitiful natural defect [Spinoza] |
| 4845 | We don't want things because they are good; we judge things to be good because we want them [Spinoza] |
| 17217 | Love is joy with an external cause [Spinoza] |
| 4848 | Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause [Spinoza] |
| 7833 | Spinoza names self-interest as the sole source of value [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 17224 | If our ideas were wholly adequate, we would have no concept of evil [Spinoza] |
| 21870 | Music is good for a melancholic, bad for a mourner, and indifferent to the deaf [Spinoza] |
| 4860 | Man's highest happiness consists of perfecting his understanding, or reason [Spinoza] |
| 4847 | Pleasure is a passive state in which the mind increases in perfection [Spinoza] |
| 4859 | Pleasure is only bad in so far as it hinders a man's capability for action [Spinoza] |
| 4851 | Reason demands nothing contrary to nature, and so it demands self-love [Spinoza] |
| 17220 | Self-satisfaction is the highest thing for which we can hope [Spinoza] |
| 4852 | Both virtue and happiness are based on the preservation of one's own being [Spinoza] |
| 17214 | To act virtuously is to act rationally [Spinoza] |
| 21871 | The more we strive for our own advantage, the more virtuous we are [Spinoza] |
| 17210 | All virtue is founded on self-preservation [Spinoza] |
| 4856 | To live according to reason is to live according to the laws of human nature [Spinoza] |
| 17221 | A man ignorant of himself is ignorant of all of the virtues [Spinoza] |
| 17225 | In a free man, choosing flight can show as much strength of mind as fighting [Spinoza] |
| 17219 | A person unmoved by either reason or pity to help others is rightly called 'inhuman' [Spinoza] |
| 4857 | Pity is a bad and useless thing, as it is a pain, and rational people perform good deeds without it [Spinoza] |
| 17223 | Pity is not a virtue, but at least it shows a desire to live uprightly [Spinoza] |
| 17218 | People who live according to reason should avoid pity [Spinoza] |
| 17228 | Rational people judge money by needs, and live contented with very little [Spinoza] |
| 4853 | Rational people are self-interested, but also desire the same goods for other people [Spinoza] |
| 4858 | A rational person will want others to have the goods he seeks for himself [Spinoza] |
| 4855 | If people are obedient to reason, they will live in harmony [Spinoza] |
| 21874 | The ideal for human preservation is unanimity among people [Spinoza] |
| 8020 | Only self-knowledge can liberate us [Spinoza, by MacIntyre] |
| 7412 | Spinoza extended Hobbes's natural rights to cover all possible desires and actions [Spinoza, by Tuck] |
| 17227 | Slavery is a disgraceful crime [Spinoza] |
| 17226 | The best use of talent is to teach other people to live rationally [Spinoza] |
| 4854 | It is impossible that the necessity of a person's nature should produce a desire for non-existence [Spinoza] |
| 17215 | Animals feel, but that doesn't mean we can't use them for our pleasure and profit [Spinoza] |
| 17190 | We can easily think of nature as one individual [Spinoza] |
| 4826 | Nature has no particular goal in view, and final causes are mere human figments [Spinoza] |
| 1587 | Spinoza strongly attacked teleology, which is the lifeblood of classical logos [Roochnik on Spinoza] |
| 1588 | For Spinoza eyes don't act for purposes, but follow mechanical necessity [Roochnik on Spinoza] |
| 12731 | Final causes are figments of human imagination [Spinoza] |
| 4821 | An infinite line can be marked in feet or inches, so one infinity is twelve times the other [Spinoza] |
| 17177 | In nature there is just one infinite substance [Spinoza] |
| 4850 | A final cause is simply a human desire [Spinoza] |
| 9659 | Causation is when at the closest world without the cause, there is no effect either [Lewis] |
| 4815 | From a definite cause an effect necessarily follows [Spinoza] |
| 9666 | It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis] |
| 7835 | The key question for Spinoza is: is his God really a God? [Stewart,M on Spinoza] |
| 17231 | God feels no emotions, of joy or sorrow [Spinoza] |
| 17172 | God is a substance with infinite attributes [Spinoza] |
| 4823 | God does not act according to the freedom of the will [Spinoza] |
| 12928 | Spinoza's God is just power and necessity, without perfection or wisdom [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
| 7571 | Spinoza's God is not a person [Spinoza, by Jolley] |
| 4314 | God is wholly without passions, and strictly speaking does not love anyone [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
| 7609 | God is the sum and principle of all eternal laws [Spinoza, by Armstrong,K] |
| 19435 | God is not loveable for producing without choice and by necessity; God is loveable for his goodness [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
| 21859 | God has no purpose, because God lacks nothing [Spinoza] |
| 4825 | To say that God promotes what is good is false, as it sets up a goal beyond God [Spinoza] |
| 21856 | Spinoza says a substance of infinite attributes cannot fail to exist [Spinoza, by Lord] |
| 17178 | Denial of God is denial that his essence involves existence, which is absurd [Spinoza] |
| 21858 | God is being as such, and you cannot conceive of the non-existence of being [Spinoza, by Lord] |
| 4820 | God must necessarily exist, because no reason can be given for his non-existence [Spinoza] |
| 17169 | Some things makes me conceive of it as a thing whose essence requires its existence [Spinoza] |
| 4817 | If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence does not involve existence [Spinoza] |
| 4827 | Priests reject as heretics anyone who tries to understand miracles in a natural way [Spinoza] |
| 12757 | That God is the substance of all things is an ill-reputed doctrine [Leibniz on Spinoza] |
| 4829 | The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God [Spinoza] |
| 17181 | God is the efficient cause of essences, as well as of existences [Spinoza] |
| 17180 | Everything is in God, and nothing exists or is thinkable without God [Spinoza] |
| 7836 | In Spinoza, one could substitute 'nature' or 'substance' for the word 'God' throughout [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 7831 | Spinoza's theory of mind implies that there is no immortality [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 21876 | After death, something eternal remains of the mind [Spinoza] |