85 ideas
| 20455 | Philosophy really got started as the rival mode of discourse to tragedy [Critchley] |
| 20446 | Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley] |
| 23183 | Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche] |
| 23188 | Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche] |
| 20449 | Science gives us an excessively theoretical view of life [Critchley] |
| 20448 | Phenomenology uncovers and redescribes the pre-theoretical layer of life [Critchley] |
| 23212 | A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche] |
| 14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
| 23199 | What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche] |
| 23202 | Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche] |
| 10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
| 23196 | Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche] |
| 17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
| 17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
| 17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
| 23186 | Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche] |
| 23211 | Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche] |
| 17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
| 17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
| 17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
| 8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
| 17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
| 14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
| 14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
| 17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
| 17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
| 17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
| 17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
| 17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
| 17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
| 17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
| 14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
| 17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
| 17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
| 17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
| 17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
| 17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
| 17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
| 17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
| 17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
| 17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
| 17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
| 23201 | The 'I' does not think; it is a construction of thinking, like other useful abstractions [Nietzsche] |
| 23207 | Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche] |
| 23197 | Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche] |
| 23206 | Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche] |
| 23209 | Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche] |
| 23184 | The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche] |
| 23190 | Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche] |
| 23191 | Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche] |
| 23213 | The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche] |
| 23210 | That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche] |
| 23192 | Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche] |
| 23189 | Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche] |
| 23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
| 23205 | Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche] |
| 23198 | Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche] |
| 20454 | Wallace Stevens is the greatest philosophical poet of the twentieth century in English [Critchley] |
| 20456 | Interesting art is always organised around ethical demands [Critchley] |
| 20447 | The problems is not justifying ethics, but motivating it. Why should a self seek its good? [Critchley] |
| 23208 | Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche] |
| 23193 | Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche] |
| 23214 | For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche] |
| 23203 | The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche] |
| 23200 | The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche] |
| 20450 | The state, law, bureaucracy and capital are limitations on life, so I prefer federalist anarchism [Critchley] |
| 20452 | Anarchism used to be libertarian (especially for sexuality), but now concerns responsibility [Critchley] |
| 20451 | Belief that humans are wicked leads to authoritarian politics [Critchley] |
| 23194 | People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche] |
| 23204 | To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche] |
| 23195 | Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche] |
| 17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
| 23185 | In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche] |
| 17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
| 17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
| 17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
| 17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
| 17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
| 17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
| 17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
| 17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
| 17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
| 17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
| 17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
| 17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |