100 ideas
| 23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
| 3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 21761 | If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21764 | Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality... [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21769 | We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being [Hegel] |
| 22037 | Objectivity is not by correspondence, but by the historical determined necessity of Geist [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 21983 | Being and nothing are the same and not the same, which is the identity of identity and non-identity [Hegel] |
| 21985 | The so-called world is filled with contradiction [Hegel] |
| 21766 | Dialectic is the instability of thoughts generating their opposite, and then new more complex thoughts [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21978 | Hegel's dialectic is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but usually negation of negation of the negation [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
| 14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
| 10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
| 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] |
| 21762 | To grasp an existence, we must consider its non-existence [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21977 | Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible [Hegel] |
| 21760 | Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 21765 | The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
| 22059 | Kant's thing-in-itself is just an abstraction from our knowledge; things only exist for us [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 22083 | Hegel believe that the genuine categories reveal things in themselves [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
| 22080 | The nature of each category relates itself to another [Hegel] |
| 14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
| 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] |
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 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] |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
| 593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 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] |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| 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] |
| 21772 | In absolute knowing, the gap between object and oneself closes, producing certainty [Hegel] |
| 20954 | The 'absolute idea' is when all the contradictions are exhausted [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 21972 | Hegel, unlike Kant, said how things appear is the same as how things are [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 22038 | Hegel's non-subjective idealism is the unity of subjective and objective viewpoints [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
| 22044 | Hegel claimed his system was about the world, but it only mapped conceptual interdependence [Pinkard on Hegel] |
| 21464 | The Absolute is the primitive system of concepts which are actualised [Hegel, by Gardner] |
| 22084 | Authentic thinking and reality have the same content [Hegel] |
| 21975 | The absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and all truth [Hegel] |
| 21976 | The absolute idea is the great unity of the infinite system of concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 22058 | Hegel's 'absolute idea' is the interdependence of all truths to justify any of them [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 20953 | Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie] |
| 21763 | When we explicate the category of being, we watch a new category emerge [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
| 3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
| 7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
| 2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
| 9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
| 94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
| 6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
| 2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
| 17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
| 1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
| 17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
| 17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
| 17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
| 17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
| 17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [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] |
| 17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
| 17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
| 17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
| 17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |