212 ideas
| 2136 | Philosophers become as divine and orderly as possible, by studying divinity and order [Plato] |
| 11461 | 323 (roughly): Euclid wrote 'Elements', summarising all of geometry [PG] |
| 11390 | 1000 (roughly): Upanishads written (in Sanskrit); religious and philosophical texts [PG] |
| 11391 | 750 (roughly): the Book of Genesis written by Hebrew writers [PG] |
| 11392 | 586: eclipse of the sun on the coast of modern Turkey was predicted by Thales of Miletus [PG] |
| 11395 | 570: Anaximander flourished in Miletus [PG] |
| 11396 | 563: the Buddha born in northern India [PG] |
| 11398 | 540: Lao Tzu wrote 'Tao Te Ching', the basis of Taoism [PG] |
| 11400 | 529: Pythagoras created his secretive community at Croton in Sicily [PG] |
| 11403 | 500: Heraclitus flourishes at Ephesus, in modern Turkey [PG] |
| 11404 | 496: Confucius travels widely, persuading rulers to be more moral [PG] |
| 11408 | 472: Empedocles persuades his city (Acragas in Sicily) to become a democracy [PG] |
| 11412 | 450 (roughly): Parmenides and Zeno visit Athens from Italy [PG] |
| 11414 | 445: Protagoras helps write laws for the new colony of Thurii [PG] |
| 11417 | 436 (roughly): Anaxagoras is tried for impiety, and expelled from Athens [PG] |
| 11421 | 427: Gorgias visited Athens as ambassador for Leontini [PG] |
| 11425 | 399: Socrates executed (with Plato absent through ill health) [PG] |
| 11432 | 387 (roughly): Plato returned to Athens, and founded the Academy [PG] |
| 11433 | 387 (roughly): Aristippus the Elder founder a hedonist school at Cyrene [PG] |
| 11440 | 367: the teenaged Aristotle came to study at the Academy [PG] |
| 11443 | 360 (roughly): Diogenes of Sinope lives in a barrel in central Athens [PG] |
| 11445 | 347: death of Plato [PG] |
| 11454 | 343: Aristotle becomes tutor to 13 year old Alexander (the Great) [PG] |
| 11456 | 335: Arisotle founded his school at the Lyceum in Athens [PG] |
| 11459 | 330 (roughly): Chuang Tzu wrote his Taoist book [PG] |
| 11465 | 322: Aristotle retired to Chalcis, and died there [PG] |
| 11468 | 307 (roughly): Epicurus founded his school at the Garden in Athens [PG] |
| 11470 | 301 (roughly): Zeno of Citium founded Stoicism at the Stoa Poikile in Athens [PG] |
| 11483 | 261: Cleanthes replaced Zeno as head of the Stoa [PG] |
| 11486 | 229 (roughly): Chrysippus replaced Cleanthes has head of the Stoa [PG] |
| 11492 | 157 (roughly): Carneades became head of the Academy [PG] |
| 11509 | 85: most philosophical activity moves to Alexandria [PG] |
| 11513 | 78: Cicero visited the stoic school on Rhodes [PG] |
| 11516 | 60 (roughly): Lucretius wrote his Latin poem on epicureanism [PG] |
| 11528 | 65: Seneca forced to commit suicide by Nero [PG] |
| 11531 | 80: the discourses of the stoic Epictetus are written down [PG] |
| 11535 | 170 (roughly): Marcus Aurelius wrote his private stoic meditations [PG] |
| 11537 | -200 (roughly): Sextus Empiricus wrote a series of books on scepticism [PG] |
| 11541 | 263: Porphyry began to study with Plotinus in Rome [PG] |
| 11545 | 310: Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire [PG] |
| 11549 | 387: Ambrose converts Augustine to Christianity [PG] |
| 11555 | 523: Boethius imprisoned at Pavia, and begins to write [PG] |
| 11557 | 529: the emperor Justinian closes all the philosophy schools in Athens [PG] |
| 11558 | 622 (roughly): Mohammed writes the Koran [PG] |
| 11559 | 642: Arabs close the philosophy schools in Alexandria [PG] |
| 11560 | 910 (roughly): Al-Farabi wrote Arabic commentaries on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11562 | 1015 (roughly): Ibn Sina (Avicenna) writes a book on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11564 | 1090: Anselm publishes his proof of the existence of God [PG] |
| 11566 | 1115: Abelard is the chief logic teacher in Paris [PG] |
| 11573 | 1166: Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle [PG] |
| 11581 | 1266: Aquinas began writing 'Summa Theologica' [PG] |
| 11586 | 1280: after his death, the teaching of Aquinas becomes official Dominican doctrine [PG] |
| 11591 | 1328: William of Ockham decides the Pope is a heretic, and moves to Munich [PG] |
| 17916 | 1347: the Church persecutes philosophical heresies [PG] |
| 11593 | 1470: Marsilio Ficino founds a Platonic Academy in Florence [PG] |
| 11596 | 1513: Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' [PG] |
| 11599 | 1543: Copernicus publishes his heliocentric view of the solar system [PG] |
| 11601 | 1580: Montaigne publishes his essays [PG] |
| 11607 | 1600: Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome [PG] |
| 11613 | 1619: Descartes's famous day of meditation inside a stove [PG] |
| 11614 | 1620: Bacon publishes 'Novum Organum' [PG] |
| 11619 | 1633: Galileo convicted of heresy by the Inquisition [PG] |
| 11623 | 1641: Descartes publishes his 'Meditations' [PG] |
| 11626 | 1650: death of Descartes, in Stockholm [PG] |
| 11627 | 1651: Hobbes publishes 'Leviathan' [PG] |
| 11633 | 1662: the Port Royal Logic is published [PG] |
| 11634 | 1665: Spinoza writes his 'Ethics' [PG] |
| 11643 | 1676: Leibniz settled as librarian to the Duke of Brunswick [PG] |
| 11649 | 1687: Newton publishes his 'Principia Mathematica' [PG] |
| 11652 | 1690: Locke publishes his 'Essay' [PG] |
| 11654 | 1697: Bayle publishes his 'Dictionary' [PG] |
| 11659 | 1713: Berkeley publishes his 'Three Dialogues' [PG] |
| 11666 | 1734: Voltaire publishes his 'Philosophical Letters' [PG] |
| 11667 | 1739: Hume publishes his 'Treatise' [PG] |
| 11675 | 1762: Rousseau publishes his 'Social Contract' [PG] |
| 11682 | 1781: Kant publishes his 'Critique of Pure Reason' [PG] |
| 11683 | 1785: Reid publishes his essays defending common sense [PG] |
| 11687 | 1798: the French Revolution [PG] |
| 11694 | 1807: Hegel publishes his 'Phenomenology of Spirit' [PG] |
| 11701 | 1818: Schopenhauer publishes his 'World as Will and Idea' [PG] |
| 11710 | 1840: Kierkegaard is writing extensively in Copenhagen [PG] |
| 11713 | 1843: Mill publishes his 'System of Logic' [PG] |
| 11715 | 1848: Marx and Engels publis the Communist Manifesto [PG] |
| 11717 | 1859: Darwin publishes his 'Origin of the Species' [PG] |
| 11721 | 1861: Mill publishes 'Utilitarianism' [PG] |
| 11724 | 1867: Marx begins publishing 'Das Kapital' [PG] |
| 11733 | 1879: Peirce taught for five years at Johns Hopkins University [PG] |
| 17907 | 1879: Frege invents predicate logic [PG] |
| 17909 | 1892: Frege's essay 'Sense and Reference' [PG] |
| 17908 | 1884: Frege publishes his 'Foundations of Arithmetic' [PG] |
| 11735 | 1885: Nietzsche completed 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' [PG] |
| 17911 | 1888: Dedekind publishes axioms for arithmetic [PG] |
| 11740 | 1890: James published 'Principles of Psychology' [PG] |
| 11742 | 1895 (roughly): Freud developed theories of the unconscious [PG] |
| 11745 | 1900: Husserl began developing Phenomenology [PG] |
| 11746 | 1903: Moore published 'Principia Ethica' [PG] |
| 11747 | 1904: Dewey became professor at Columbia University [PG] |
| 17910 | 1908: Zermelo publishes axioms for set theory [PG] |
| 11752 | 1910: Russell and Whitehead begin publishing 'Principia Mathematica' [PG] |
| 11756 | 1912: Russell meets Wittgenstein in Cambridge [PG] |
| 11762 | 1921: Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' published [PG] |
| 11765 | 1927: Heidegger's 'Being and Time' published [PG] |
| 11768 | 1930: Frank Ramsey dies at 27 [PG] |
| 11770 | 1931: Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems [PG] |
| 11773 | 1933: Tarski's theory of truth [PG] |
| 11783 | 1942: Camus published 'The Myth of Sisyphus' [PG] |
| 11784 | 1943: Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' [PG] |
| 11787 | 1945: Merleau-Ponty's 'Phenomenology of Perception' [PG] |
| 17918 | 1947: Carnap published 'Meaning and Necessity' [PG] |
| 11794 | 1950: Quine's essay 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' [PG] |
| 17917 | 1953: Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' [PG] |
| 17919 | 1956: Place proposed mind-brain identity [PG] |
| 11804 | 1962: Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions' [PG] |
| 17921 | 1967: Putnam proposed functionalism of the mind [PG] |
| 11808 | 1971: Rawls's 'A Theory of Justice' [PG] |
| 11810 | 1972: Kripke publishes 'Naming and Necessity' [PG] |
| 11813 | 1975: Singer publishes 'Animal Rights' [PG] |
| 17920 | 1975: Putnam published his Twin Earth example [PG] |
| 11820 | 1986: David Lewis publishes 'On the Plurality of Worlds' [PG] |
| 23767 | The winds of the discussion should decide its destination [Plato] |
| 23682 | It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things [Plato] |
| 2151 | Dialectic is the only method of inquiry which uproots the things which it takes for granted [Plato] |
| 2154 | The ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician [Plato] |
| 4011 | For Plato, rationality is a vision of and love of a cosmic rational order [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 2093 | You must never go against what you actually believe [Plato] |
| 2130 | People often merely practice eristic instead of dialectic, because they don't analyse the subject-matter [Plato] |
| 2145 | In mathematics certain things have to be accepted without further explanation [Plato] |
| 8726 | Geometry can lead the mind upwards to truth and philosophy [Plato] |
| 9863 | We aim for elevated discussion of pure numbers, not attaching them to physical objects [Plato] |
| 9864 | In pure numbers, all ones are equal, with no internal parts [Plato] |
| 8727 | Geometry is not an activity, but the study of unchanging knowledge [Plato] |
| 9861 | The same thing is both one and an unlimited number at the same time [Plato] |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| 21818 | Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato] |
| 2061 | The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato] |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| 2142 | The plurality of beautiful things must belong to a single class, because they have a single particular character [Plato] |
| 5094 | Plato's Forms are said to have no location in space [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 12043 | Forms are not universals, as they don't cover every general term [Plato, by Annas] |
| 2159 | Craftsmen making furniture refer to the form, but no one manufactures the form of furniture [Plato] |
| 17 | A Form applies to a set of particular things with the same name [Plato] |
| 12122 | Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato] |
| 5574 | Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant] |
| 2133 | Knowledge must be of the permanent unchanging nature of things [Plato] |
| 2162 | If theory and practice conflict, the best part of the mind accepts theory, so the other part is of lower grade [Plato] |
| 2140 | True belief without knowledge is like blind people on the right road [Plato] |
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| 6009 | Psychic conflict is clear if appetite is close to the body and reason fairly separate [Plato, by Modrak] |
| 6041 | There is a third element to the mind - spirit - lying between reason and appetite [Plato] |
| 2127 | The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato] |
| 1737 | The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 5945 | The 'Republic' is a great work of rhetorical theory [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| 16 | We avoid evil either through a natural aversion, or because we have acquired knowledge [Plato] |
| 16565 | Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real [Plato] |
| 2160 | Representation is two steps removed from the truth [Plato] |
| 2163 | Artists should be excluded from a law-abiding community, because they destroy the rational mind [Plato] |
| 2135 | Truth is closely related to proportion [Plato] |
| 2141 | I suggest that we forget about trying to define goodness itself for the time being [Plato] |
| 1869 | The good cannot be expressed in words, but imprints itself upon the soul [Plato, by Celsus] |
| 4115 | Plato found that he could only enforce rational moral justification by creating an authoritarian society [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 4547 | Plato measured the degree of reality by the degree of value [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 2094 | A thing's function is what it alone can do, or what it does better than other things [Plato] |
| 2095 | If something has a function then it has a state of being good [Plato] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 12 | If we were invisible, would the just man become like the unjust? [Plato] |
| 2168 | Clever criminals do well at first, but not in the long run [Plato] |
| 2137 | The main aim is to understand goodness, which gives everything its value and advantage [Plato] |
| 2139 | Every person, and every activity, aims at the good [Plato] |
| 2143 | Good has the same role in the world of knowledge as the sun has in the physical world [Plato] |
| 2147 | The sight of goodness leads to all that is fine and true and right [Plato] |
| 4007 | For Plato we abandon honour and pleasure once we see the Good [Plato, by Taylor,C] |
| 2144 | Goodness makes truth and knowledge possible [Plato] |
| 2164 | Bad is always destructive, where good preserves and benefits [Plato] |
| 2138 | Pleasure is commonly thought to be the good, though the more ingenious prefer knowledge [Plato] |
| 2070 | Even people who think pleasure is the good admit that there are bad pleasures [Plato] |
| 2157 | Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato] |
| 2134 | Philosophers are concerned with totally non-physical pleasures [Plato] |
| 2156 | There are three types of pleasure, for reason, for spirit and for appetite [Plato] |
| 2158 | Pleasure-seekers desperately seek illusory satisfaction, like filling a leaky vessel [Plato] |
| 2123 | Excessive pleasure deranges people, making the other virtues impossible [Plato] |
| 2166 | We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato] |
| 2097 | Isn't it better to have a reputation for goodness than to actually be good? [Plato] |
| 19946 | Morality is a compromise, showing restraint, to avoid suffering wrong without compensation [Plato] |
| 5 | Justice is merely the interests of the stronger party [Plato] |
| 7 | Surely you don't return a borrowed weapon to a mad friend? [Plato] |
| 8 | Is right just the interests of the powerful? [Plato] |
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| 5944 | For Plato, virtue is its own reward [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 20482 | Virtue inspires Stoics, but I want a good temperament [Montaigne] |
| 20480 | There is not much point in only becoming good near the end of your life [Montaigne] |
| 2155 | True goodness requires mental unity and harmony [Plato] |
| 2126 | A good community necessarily has wisdom, courage, self-discipline and morality [Plato] |
| 23562 | If the parts of our soul do their correct work, we will be just people, and will act justly [Plato] |
| 2092 | Simonides said morality is helping one's friends and harming one's enemies [Plato] |
| 19889 | People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato] |
| 19890 | All exchanges in a community are for mutual benefit [Plato] |
| 10 | After a taste of mutual harm, men make a legal contract to avoid it [Plato] |
| 23561 | People doing their jobs properly is the fourth cardinal virtue for a city [Plato] |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| 2131 | Is there anything better for a community than to produce excellent people? [Plato] |
| 20481 | Nothing we say can be worse than unsaying it in the face of authority [Montaigne] |
| 20479 | People at home care far more than soldiers risking death about the outcome of wars [Montaigne] |
| 2148 | To gain knowledge, turn away from the world of change, and focus on true goodness [Plato] |
| 2152 | Dialectic is the highest and most important part of the curriculum [Plato] |
| 2153 | Compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind [Plato] |
| 2630 | If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him [Cicero on Plato] |
| 14 | If the gods are non-existent or indifferent, why bother to deceive them? [Plato] |
| 2165 | Something is unlikely to be immortal if it is imperfectly made from diverse parts [Plato] |
| 13 | Is the supreme reward for virtue to be drunk for eternity? [Plato] |
| 2120 | God is responsible for the good things, but we must look elsewhere for the cause of the bad things [Plato] |