137 ideas
224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
21616 | Truth and falsity apply to suppositions as well as to assertions [Williamson] |
21623 | True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson] |
21602 | Many-valued logics don't solve vagueness; its presence at the meta-level is ignored [Williamson] |
21611 | Formal semantics defines validity as truth preserved in every model [Williamson] |
21606 | 'Bivalence' is the meta-linguistic principle that 'A' in the object language is true or false [Williamson] |
21605 | Excluded Middle is 'A or not A' in the object language [Williamson] |
3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
21612 | Or-elimination is 'Argument by Cases'; it shows how to derive C from 'A or B' [Williamson] |
13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
21599 | A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson] |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
21589 | When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson] |
21596 | Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson] |
21601 | A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson] |
21629 | Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson] |
21591 | Vagueness is epistemic. Statements are true or false, but we often don't know which [Williamson] |
21619 | If a heap has a real boundary, omniscient speakers would agree where it is [Williamson] |
21620 | The epistemic view says that the essence of vagueness is ignorance [Williamson] |
21622 | If there is a true borderline of which we are ignorant, this drives a wedge between meaning and use [Williamson] |
9120 | Vagueness in a concept is its indiscriminability from other possible concepts [Williamson] |
21625 | The vagueness of 'heap' can remain even when the context is fixed [Williamson] |
21614 | The 'nihilist' view of vagueness says that 'heap' is not a legitimate concept [Williamson] |
21617 | We can say propositions are bivalent, but vague utterances don't express a proposition [Williamson] |
21618 | If the vague 'TW is thin' says nothing, what does 'TW is thin if his perfect twin is thin' say? [Williamson] |
21590 | Asking when someone is 'clearly' old is higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
21592 | Supervaluation keeps classical logic, but changes the truth in classical semantics [Williamson] |
21603 | You can't give a precise description of a language which is intrinsically vague [Williamson] |
21604 | Supervaluation assigns truth when all the facts are respected [Williamson] |
21607 | Supervaluation has excluded middle but not bivalence; 'A or not-A' is true, even when A is undecided [Williamson] |
21608 | Truth-functionality for compound statements fails in supervaluation [Williamson] |
21609 | Supervaluationism defines 'supertruth', but neglects it when defining 'valid' [Williamson] |
21610 | Supervaluation adds a 'definitely' operator to classical logic [Williamson] |
21613 | Supervaluationism cannot eliminate higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
21633 | Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson] |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
21630 | If fuzzy edges are fine, then why not fuzzy temporal, modal or mereological boundaries? [Williamson] |
15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
21632 | A river is not just event; it needs actual and counterfactual boundaries [Williamson] |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
21621 | We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson] |
21627 | We have inexact knowledge when we include margins of error [Williamson] |
3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
21626 | Knowing you know (KK) is usually denied if the knowledge concept is missing, or not considered [Williamson] |
3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
21631 | To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson] |
3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
21600 | 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson] |
3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
21615 | References to the 'greatest prime number' have no reference, but are meaningful [Williamson] |
3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
18038 | The 't' and 'f' of formal semantics has no philosophical interest, and may not refer to true and false [Williamson] |
21624 | It is known that there is a cognitive loss in identifying propositions with possible worlds [Williamson] |
3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |