64 ideas
| 354 | Wisdom makes virtue and true goodness possible [Plato] |
| 1606 | You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik] |
| 370 | Philosophy is a purification of the soul ready for the afterlife [Plato] |
| 1595 | Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik] |
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| 1571 | 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik] |
| 1572 | In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik] |
| 1573 | The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik] |
| 1592 | Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik] |
| 1593 | Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik] |
| 1603 | Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik] |
| 350 | In investigation the body leads us astray, but the soul gets a clear view of the facts [Plato] |
| 1598 | We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik] |
| 362 | The greatest misfortune for a person is to develop a dislike for argument [Plato] |
| 1584 | Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik] |
| 1591 | Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik] |
| 1599 | Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik] |
| 13155 | If you add one to one, which one becomes two, or do they both become two? [Plato] |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| 1605 | Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik] |
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
| 360 | We must have a prior knowledge of equality, if we see 'equal' things and realise they fall short of it [Plato] |
| 1 | There is only one source for all beauty [Plato] |
| 368 | Other things are named after the Forms because they participate in them [Plato] |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 16516 | The ship which Theseus took to Crete is now sent to Delos crowned with flowers [Plato] |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| 357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
| 359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
| 9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| 1577 | Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik] |
| 15859 | To investigate the causes of things, study what is best for them [Plato] |
| 13154 | Do we think and experience with blood, air or fire, or could it be our brain? [Plato] |
| 364 | One soul can't be more or less of a soul than another [Plato] |
| 1578 | If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik] |
| 1596 | Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik] |
| 361 | It is a mistake to think that the most violent pleasure or pain is therefore the truest reality [Plato] |
| 351 | War aims at the acquisition of wealth, because we are enslaved to the body [Plato] |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 13156 | Fancy being unable to distinguish a cause from its necessary background conditions! [Plato] |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| 369 | If the Earth is spherical and in the centre, it is kept in place by universal symmetry, not by force [Plato] |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 363 | Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato] |