70 ideas
2056 | Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato] |
2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
2082 | A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato] |
2052 | Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato] |
15854 | A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato] |
23000 | Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller] |
10800 | The values of variables can't determine existence, because they are just expressions [Ryle, by Quine] |
23024 | A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller] |
10216 | We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato] |
2060 | There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato] |
23008 | Grounding is intended as a relation that fits dependences between things [Baron/Miller] |
2084 | If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato] |
15844 | A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato] |
15843 | The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato] |
23018 | How does a changing object retain identity or have incompatible properties over time? [Baron/Miller] |
2080 | Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato] |
16126 | Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato] |
2050 | It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato] |
2076 | How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato] |
2045 | Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato] |
2067 | Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato] |
2068 | With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato] |
2069 | Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato] |
2078 | You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato] |
2089 | An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato] |
2085 | Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato] |
2091 | Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato] |
2087 | A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato] |
2090 | A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato] |
2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
2053 | If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato] |
2054 | Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato] |
2059 | How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato] |
23011 | Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller] |
23013 | The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller] |
23014 | If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller] |
23015 | The counterfactual theory of causation handles the problem no matter what causes actually are [Baron/Miller] |
23016 | Counterfactual theories struggle with pre-emption by a causal back-up system [Baron/Miller] |
23009 | There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller] |
23002 | In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller] |
22988 | The block universe theory says entities of all times exist, and time is the B-series [Baron/Miller] |
22991 | How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller] |
22992 | If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller] |
22994 | Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller] |
22998 | How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller] |
23017 | Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller] |
23023 | How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller] |
22995 | Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller] |
22993 | For abstractionists past times might still exist, althought their objects don't [Baron/Miller] |
23001 | The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller] |
22999 | It is meaningless to measure the rate of time using time itself, and without a rate there is no flow [Baron/Miller] |
22986 | The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller] |
22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |
23007 | The B-series can have a direction, as long as it does not arise from temporal flow [Baron/Miller] |
23003 | Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller] |
23004 | The direction of time is either primitive, or reducible to something else [Baron/Miller] |
23005 | The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller] |
23006 | Maybe the past is just the direction of decreasing entropy [Baron/Miller] |
23010 | We could explain time's direction by causation: past is the direction of causes, future of effects [Baron/Miller] |
22989 | Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller] |
23020 | If a time traveller kills his youthful grandfather, he both exists and fails to exist [Baron/Miller] |
23022 | Presentism means there no existing past for a time traveller to visit [Baron/Miller] |
22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |
22990 | The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller] |
22997 | The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller] |
2058 | God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato] |
2057 | There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato] |