41 ideas
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
1553 | No perceptible object is truly straight or curved [Protagoras] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
1549 | Everything that exists consists in being perceived [Protagoras] |
1545 | Protagoras was the first to claim that there are two contradictory arguments about everything [Protagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
1547 | Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not [Protagoras] |
3305 | There is no more purely metaphysical doctrine than Protagorean relativism [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
3317 | You can only state the problem of the relative warmth of an object by agreeing on the underlying object [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
3313 | If my hot wind is your cold wind, then wind is neither hot nor cold, and so not as cold as itself [Benardete,JA on Protagoras] |
247 | God is "the measure of all things", more than any man [Plato on Protagoras] |
606 | Protagoras absurdly thought that the knowing or perceiving man is 'the measure of all things' [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
612 | Relativists think if you poke your eye and see double, there must be two things [Aristotle on Protagoras] |
6016 | Early sophists thought convention improved nature; later they said nature was diminished by it [Protagoras, by Miller,FD] |
1580 | For Protagoras the only bad behaviour is that which interferes with social harmony [Protagoras, by Roochnik] |
205 | Protagoras contradicts himself by saying virtue is teachable, but then that it is not knowledge [Plato on Protagoras] |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
1659 | Protagoras seems to have made the huge move of separating punishment from revenge [Protagoras, by Vlastos] |
532 | Successful education must go deep into the soul [Protagoras] |
1552 | He spent public money on education, as it benefits the individual and the state [Protagoras, by Diodorus of Sicily] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
1551 | He said he didn't know whether there are gods - but this is the same as atheism [Diogenes of Oen. on Protagoras] |