63 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] |
4767 | Traditionally, rational beliefs are those which are justified by reasons [Psillos] |
1403 | A rational donkey would starve to death between two totally identical piles of hay [Buridan, by PG] |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
4810 | Valid deduction is monotonic - that is, it remains valid if further premises are added [Psillos] |
4768 | The 'epistemic fallacy' is inferring what does exist from what can be known to exist [Psillos] |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
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] |
4807 | A good barometer will predict a storm, but not explain it [Psillos] |
4808 | If we say where Mars was two months ago, we offer an explanation without a prediction [Psillos] |
4811 | Induction (unlike deduction) is non-monotonic - it can be invalidated by new premises [Psillos] |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
4812 | Explanation is either showing predictability, or showing necessity, or showing causal relations [Psillos] |
4802 | Just citing a cause does not enable us to understand an event; we also need a relevant law [Psillos] |
4804 | The 'covering law model' says only laws can explain the occurrence of single events [Psillos] |
4805 | If laws explain the length of a flagpole's shadow, then the shadow also explains the length of the pole [Psillos] |
4806 | An explanation can just be a 'causal story', without laws, as when I knock over some ink [Psillos] |
4395 | There are non-causal explanations, most typically mathematical explanations [Psillos] |
4404 | Maybe explanation is entirely relative to the interests and presuppositions of the questioner [Psillos] |
4803 | An explanation is the removal of the surprise caused by the event [Psillos] |
4769 | It is hard to analyse causation, if it is presupposed in our theory of the functioning of the mind [Psillos] |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
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] |
4770 | Nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation which they occasion [Psillos] |
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] |
4399 | Causes clearly make a difference, are recipes for events, explain effects, and are evidence [Psillos] |
4400 | Theories of causation are based either on regularity, or on intrinsic relations of properties [Psillos] |
4403 | We can't base our account of causation on explanation, because it is the wrong way round [Psillos] |
4789 | Three divisions of causal theories: generalist/singularist, intrinsic/extrinsic, reductive/non-reductive [Psillos] |
4790 | If causation is 'intrinsic' it depends entirely on the properties and relations of the cause and effect [Psillos] |
4402 | Empiricists tried to reduce causation to explanation, which they reduced to logic-plus-a-law [Psillos] |
4774 | Counterfactual claims about causation imply that it is more than just regular succession [Psillos] |
4793 | "All gold cubes are smaller than one cubic mile" is a true universal generalisation, but not a law [Psillos] |
4397 | Regularity doesn't seem sufficient for causation [Psillos] |
4792 | A Humean view of causation says it is regularities, and causal facts supervene on non-causal facts [Psillos] |
4801 | The regularity of a cock's crow is used to predict dawn, even though it doesn't cause it [Psillos] |
4401 | It is not a law of nature that all the coins in my pocket are euros, though it is a regularity [Psillos] |
4796 | Laws are sets of regularities within a simple and strong coherent system of wider regularities [Psillos] |
4799 | Dispositional essentialism can't explain its key distinction between essential and non-essential properties [Psillos] |
4780 | In some counterfactuals, the counterfactual event happens later than its consequent [Psillos] |
4791 | Counterfactual theories say causes make a difference - if c hadn't occurred, then e wouldn't occur [Psillos] |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |