232 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] |
2937 | What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence [Wittgenstein] |
6870 | I say (contrary to Wittgenstein) that philosophy expresses what we thought we must be silent about [Ansell Pearson on Wittgenstein] |
15209 | Like disastrous small errors in navigation, small misunderstandings can wreck intellectual life [Harré/Madden] |
2944 | If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it [Wittgenstein] |
9810 | The 'Tractatus' is a masterpiece of anti-philosophy [Badiou on Wittgenstein] |
23459 | This work solves all the main problems, but that has little value [Wittgenstein] |
23512 | Once you understand my book you will see that it is nonsensical [Wittgenstein] |
15215 | Philosophy devises and assesses conceptual schemes in the service of worldviews [Harré/Madden] |
15212 | Analysis of concepts based neither on formalism nor psychology can arise from examining what we know [Harré/Madden] |
2938 | The limits of my language means the limits of my world [Wittgenstein] |
6429 | All complex statements can be resolved into constituents and descriptions [Wittgenstein] |
23492 | Our language is an aspect of biology, and so its inner logic is opaque [Wittgenstein] |
23510 | Most philosophical questions arise from failing to understand the logic of language [Wittgenstein] |
15210 | Humeans see analysis in terms of formal logic, because necessities are fundamentally logical relations [Harré/Madden] |
23499 | This book says we should either say it clearly, or shut up [Wittgenstein] |
15236 | Positivism says science only refers to immediate experiences [Harré/Madden] |
23508 | Science is all the true propositions [Wittgenstein] |
2939 | If a sign is useless it is meaningless; that is the point of Ockham's maxim [Wittgenstein] |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
15227 | Logically, definitions have a subject, and a set of necessary predicates [Harré/Madden] |
10910 | The best account of truth-making is isomorphism [Wittgenstein, by Mulligan/Simons/Smith] |
23462 | He says the world is the facts because it is the facts which fix all the truths [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
18349 | All truths have truth-makers, but only atomic truths correspond to them [Wittgenstein, by Rami] |
10967 | Wittgenstein's picture theory is the best version of the correspondence theory of truth [Read on Wittgenstein] |
7087 | Language is [propositions-elementary propositions-names]; reality is [facts-states of affairs-objects] [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
4702 | The account of truth in the 'Tractatus' seems a perfect example of the correspondence theory [Wittgenstein, by O'Grady] |
7056 | Pictures reach out to or feel reality, touching at the edges, correlating in its parts [Wittgenstein] |
23483 | Proposition elements correlate with objects, but the whole picture does not correspond to a fact [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
23502 | Logic fills the world, to its limits [Wittgenstein] |
23504 | Logic concerns everything that is subject to law; the rest is accident [Wittgenstein] |
6428 | Wittgenstein is right that logic is just tautologies [Wittgenstein, by Russell] |
11062 | Logic is a priori because it is impossible to think illogically [Wittgenstein] |
18277 | If q implies p, that is justified by q and p, not by some 'laws' of inference [Wittgenstein] |
18162 | The propositions of logic are analytic tautologies [Wittgenstein] |
7537 | Wittgenstein convinced Russell that logic is tautologies, not Platonic forms [Wittgenstein, by Monk] |
23496 | Two colours in the same place is ruled out by the logical structure of colour [Wittgenstein] |
18154 | The sign of identity is not allowed in 'Tractatus' [Wittgenstein, by Bostock] |
13429 | The identity sign is not essential in logical notation, if every sign has a different meaning [Wittgenstein, by Ramsey] |
18268 | Apparent logical form may not be real logical form [Wittgenstein] |
10905 | My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' do not represent [Wittgenstein] |
23493 | 'Not' isn't an object, because not-not-p would then differ from p [Wittgenstein] |
7784 | 'Object' is a pseudo-concept, properly indicated in logic by the variable x [Wittgenstein] |
23506 | Names are primitive, and cannot be analysed [Wittgenstein] |
7089 | A name is primitive, and its meaning is the object [Wittgenstein] |
9467 | Wittgenstein tried unsuccessfully to reduce quantifiers to conjunctions and disjunctions [Wittgenstein, by Jacquette] |
15089 | Logical proof just explicates complicated tautologies [Wittgenstein] |
13830 | Logical truths are just 'by-products' of the introduction rules for logical constants [Wittgenstein, by Hacking] |
19292 | Logic doesn't split into primitive and derived propositions; they all have the same status [Wittgenstein] |
15273 | Points can be 'dense' by unending division, but must meet a tougher criterion to be 'continuous' [Harré/Madden] |
15274 | Points are 'continuous' if any 'cut' point participates in both halves of the cut [Harré/Madden] |
18160 | The concept of number is just what all numbers have in common [Wittgenstein] |
18153 | A number is a repeated operation [Wittgenstein] |
18161 | The theory of classes is superfluous in mathematics [Wittgenstein] |
6849 | Wittgenstein hated logicism, and described it as a cancerous growth [Wittgenstein, by Monk] |
23509 | The logic of the world is shown by tautologies in logic, and by equations in mathematics [Wittgenstein] |
15211 | There is not an exclusive dichotomy between the formal and the logical [Harré/Madden] |
13133 | The world is facts, not things. Facts determine the world, and the world divides into facts [Wittgenstein] |
15261 | Humeans can only explain change with continuity as successive replacement [Harré/Madden] |
15268 | Humeans construct their objects from events, but we construct events from objects [Harré/Madden] |
15257 | The induction problem fades if you work with things, rather than with events [Harré/Madden] |
15300 | Fundamental particulars can't change [Harré/Madden] |
7090 | The 'Tractatus' is an extreme example of 'Logical Atomism' [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
23464 | In atomic facts the objects hang together like chain links [Wittgenstein] |
23471 | The structure of an atomic fact is how its objects combine; this possibility is its form [Wittgenstein] |
21682 | If a proposition is elementary, no other elementary proposition contradicts it [Wittgenstein] |
22319 | Analysis must end in elementary propositions, which are combinations of names [Wittgenstein] |
21683 | Nothing can be inferred from an elementary proposition [Wittgenstein] |
15319 | Hard individual blocks don't fix what 'things' are; fluids are no less material things [Harré/Madden] |
15320 | Magnetic and gravity fields can occupy the same place without merging [Harré/Madden] |
15318 | Gravitational and electrical fields are, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material [Harré/Madden] |
23473 | Do his existent facts constitute the world, or determine the world? [Morris,M on Wittgenstein] |
22311 | The world is determined by the facts, and there are no further facts [Wittgenstein] |
22313 | The existence of atomic facts is a positive fact, their non-existence a negative fact [Wittgenstein] |
22314 | On white paper a black spot is a positive fact and a white spot a negative fact [Wittgenstein] |
15267 | Events are changes in states of affairs (which consist of structured particulars, with powers and relations) [Harré/Madden] |
7969 | The order of numbers is an internal relation, not an external one [Wittgenstein] |
7968 | A relation is internal if it is unthinkable that its object should not possess it [Wittgenstein] |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
15281 | Humeans see predicates as independent, but science says they are connected [Harré/Madden] |
15279 | Energy was introduced to physics to refer to the 'store of potency' of a moving ball [Harré/Madden] |
15276 | Some powers need a stimulus, but others are just released [Harré/Madden] |
15305 | Some powers are variable, others cannot change (without destroying an identity) [Harré/Madden] |
15218 | Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden] |
15302 | We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden] |
15303 | Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden] |
15258 | Powers are not qualities; they just point to directions of empirical investigation [Harré/Madden] |
15315 | What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
23466 | Objects are the substance of the world [Wittgenstein] |
9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
23467 | Objects are simple [Wittgenstein] |
13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
15272 | The good criticism of substance by Humeans also loses them the vital concept of a thing [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
23468 | Apart from the facts, there is only substance [Wittgenstein] |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
15304 | We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden] |
15309 | The assumption that shape and solidity are fundamental implies dubious 'substance' in bodies [Harré/Madden] |
15264 | The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden] |
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] |
15262 | In logic the nature of a kind, substance or individual is the essence which is inseparable from what it is [Harré/Madden] |
22321 | To know an object we must know the form and content of its internal properties [Wittgenstein, by Potter] |
15297 | We can infer a new property of a thing from its other properties, via its essential nature [Harré/Madden] |
15266 | We say the essence of particles is energy, but only so we can tell a story about the nature of things [Harré/Madden] |
15220 | To say something remains the same but lacks its capacities and powers seems a contradiction [Harré/Madden] |
15222 | Some individuals can gain or lose capacities or powers, without losing their identity [Harré/Madden] |
15296 | A particular might change all of its characteristics, retaining mere numerical identity [Harré/Madden] |
15275 | 'Dense' time raises doubts about continuous objects, so they need 'continuous' time [Harré/Madden] |
15271 | If things are successive instantaneous events, nothing requires those events to resemble one another [Harré/Madden] |
15256 | Humeans cannot step in the same river twice, because they cannot strictly form the concept of 'river' [Harré/Madden] |
6056 | Identity is not a relation between objects [Wittgenstein] |
22322 | You can't define identity by same predicates, because two objects with same predicates is assertable [Wittgenstein] |
6057 | Two things can't be identical, and self-identity is an empty concept [Wittgenstein] |
15290 | What reduces the field of the possible is a step towards necessity [Harré/Madden] |
9442 | The only necessity is logical necessity [Wittgenstein] |
15291 | There is 'absolute' necessity (implied by all propositions) and 'relative' necessity (from what is given) [Harré/Madden] |
15230 | Logical necessity is grounded in the logical form of a statement [Harré/Madden] |
15214 | Natural necessity is not logical necessity or empirical contingency in disguise [Harré/Madden] |
15221 | The relation between what a thing is and what it can do or undergo relate by natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15224 | A necessity corresponds to the nature of the actual [Harré/Madden] |
15232 | Natural necessity is when powerful particulars must produce certain results in a situation [Harré/Madden] |
15288 | People doubt science because if it isn't logically necessary it seems to be absolutely contingent [Harré/Madden] |
15289 | Property or event relations are naturally necessary if generated by essential mechanisms [Harré/Madden] |
15231 | Transcendental necessity is conditions of a world required for a rational being to know its nature [Harré/Madden] |
15234 | There is a transcendental necessity for each logical necessity, but the transcendental extends further [Harré/Madden] |
15260 | Counterfactuals are just right for analysing statements about the powers which things have [Harré/Madden] |
15233 | If natural necessity is used to include or exclude some predicate, the predicate is conceptually necessary [Harré/Madden] |
15242 | Having a child is contingent for a 'man', necessary for a 'father'; the latter reflects a necessity of nature [Harré/Madden] |
15216 | Is conceptual necessity just conventional, or does it mirror something about nature? [Harré/Madden] |
15235 | There is a conceptual necessity when properties become a standard part of a nominal essence [Harré/Madden] |
15228 | Necessity and contingency are separate from the a priori and the a posteriori [Harré/Madden] |
23495 | The tautologies of logic show the logic of language and the world [Wittgenstein] |
23487 | What is thinkable is possible [Wittgenstein] |
15252 | If Goldbach's Conjecture is true (and logically necessary), we may be able to conceive its opposite [Harré/Madden] |
23470 | Each thing is in a space of possible facts [Wittgenstein] |
23507 | Unlike the modern view of a set of worlds, Wittgenstein thinks of a structured manifold of them [Wittgenstein, by White,RM] |
23469 | An imagined world must have something in common with the real world [Wittgenstein] |
11027 | To know an object you must know all its possible occurrences [Wittgenstein] |
23465 | The 'form' of an object is its possible roles in facts [Wittgenstein] |
12869 | Two objects may only differ in being different [Wittgenstein] |
15245 | It is silly to say that direct experience must be justified, either by reason, or by more experience [Harré/Madden] |
23503 | Strict solipsism is pure realism, with the self as a mere point in surrounding reality [Wittgenstein] |
16907 | If the truth doesn't follow from self-evidence, then self-evidence cannot justify a truth [Wittgenstein] |
23479 | The Tractatus aims to reveal the necessities, without appealing to synthetic a priori truths [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
23501 | There is no a priori order of things [Wittgenstein] |
7088 | Logic and maths can't say anything about the world, since, as tautologies, they are consistent with all realities [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
16909 | Logic is a priori because we cannot think illogically [Wittgenstein] |
23485 | No pictures are true a priori [Wittgenstein] |
15244 | We experience qualities as of objects, not on their own [Harré/Madden] |
15248 | Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden] |
15269 | Humean impressions are too instantaneous and simple to have structure or relations [Harré/Madden] |
6591 | Doubts can't exist if they are inexpressible or unanswerable [Wittgenstein] |
15286 | Clavius's Paradox: purely syntactic entailment theories won't explain, because they are too profuse [Harré/Madden] |
15283 | Simplicity can sort theories out, but still leaves an infinity of possibilities [Harré/Madden] |
15316 | The powers/natures approach has been so successful (for electricity, magnetism, gravity) it may be universal [Harré/Madden] |
15225 | Science investigates the nature and constitution of things or substances [Harré/Madden] |
15298 | We prefer the theory which explains and predicts the powers and capacities of particulars [Harré/Madden] |
17665 | The 'Tractatus' is instrumentalist about laws of nature [Wittgenstein, by Armstrong] |
2941 | Induction accepts the simplest law that fits our experiences [Wittgenstein] |
15255 | Conjunctions explain nothing, and so do not give a reason for confidence in inductions [Harré/Madden] |
15270 | Hume's atomic events makes properties independent, and leads to problems with induction [Harré/Madden] |
15284 | Contraposition may be equivalent in truth, but not true in nature, because of irrelevant predicates [Harré/Madden] |
15285 | The items put forward by the contraposition belong within different natural clusters [Harré/Madden] |
15287 | The possibility that all ravens are black is a law depends on a mechanism producing the blackness [Harré/Madden] |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
15306 | Only changes require explanation [Harré/Madden] |
15293 | If explanation is by entailment, that lacks a causal direction, unlike natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15294 | Powers can explain the direction of causality, and make it a natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
17673 | The modern worldview is based on the illusion that laws explain nature [Wittgenstein] |
15254 | If the nature of particulars explains their powers, it also explains their relations and behaviour [Harré/Madden] |
15317 | Powers and natures lead us to hypothesise underlying mechanisms, which may be real [Harré/Madden] |
15310 | Solidity comes from the power of repulsion, and shape from the power of attraction [Harré/Madden] |
15219 | Essence explains passive capacities as well as active powers [Harré/Madden] |
15301 | The very concepts of a particular power or nature imply the possibility of being generalised [Harré/Madden] |
2940 | The subject stands outside our understanding of the world [Wittgenstein] |
23498 | The modern idea of the subjective soul is composite, and impossible [Wittgenstein] |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
23475 | The form of a proposition must show why nonsense is unjudgeable [Wittgenstein] |
15226 | What properties a thing must have to be a type of substance can be laid down a priori [Harré/Madden] |
7084 | What can be said is what can be thought, so language shows the limits of thought [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
23482 | The 'form' of the picture is its possible combinations [Wittgenstein] |
8172 | To understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true [Wittgenstein] |
7086 | Good philosophy asserts science, and demonstrates the meaninglessness of metaphysics [Wittgenstein] |
23511 | Propositions use old expressions for a new sense [Wittgenstein] |
23488 | Propositions are understood via their constituents [Wittgenstein] |
23486 | Pictures are possible situations in logical space [Wittgenstein] |
3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
23497 | Solipsism is correct, but can only be shown, not said, by the limits of my personal language [Wittgenstein] |
15229 | We say there is 'no alternative' in all sorts of contexts, and there are many different grounds for it [Harré/Madden] |
23489 | We translate by means of proposition constituents, not by whole propositions [Wittgenstein] |
2943 | Ethics cannot be put into words [Wittgenstein] |
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] |
2942 | The sense of the world must lie outside the world [Wittgenstein] |
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] |
15292 | We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
15299 | Species do not have enough constancy to be natural kinds [Harré/Madden] |
15253 | If the concept of a cause includes its usual effects, we call it a 'power' [Harré/Madden] |
15278 | Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden] |
15246 | Active causal power is just objects at work, not something existing in itself [Harré/Madden] |
15213 | Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden] |
15217 | Efficient causes combine stimulus to individuals, absence of contraints on activity [Harré/Madden] |
15277 | The cause (or part of it) is what stimulates or releases the powerful particular thing involved [Harré/Madden] |
15237 | Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden] |
15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
15223 | Necessary effects will follow from some general theory specifying powers and structure of a world [Harré/Madden] |
15241 | Humeans say there is no necessity in causation, because denying an effect is never self-contradictory [Harré/Madden] |
15240 | In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds [Harré/Madden] |
15239 | We could call any generalisation a law, if it had reasonable support and no counter-evidence [Harré/Madden] |
15243 | We perceive motion, and not just successive occupations of different positions [Harré/Madden] |
15265 | 'Energy' is a quasi-substance invented as the bearer of change during interactions [Harré/Madden] |
15280 | 'Kinetic energy' is used to explain the effects of moving things when they are stopped [Harré/Madden] |
15321 | Space can't be an individual (in space), but it is present in all places [Harré/Madden] |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
15259 | Chemical atoms have two powers: to enter certain combinations, and to emit a particular spectrum [Harré/Madden] |
15263 | Chemistry is not purely structural; CO2 is not the same as SO2 [Harré/Madden] |
15295 | Theism is supposed to make the world more intelligible - and should offer results [Harré/Madden] |