28 ideas
| 21855 | Only in the 1780s did it become acceptable to read Spinoza [Lord] |
| 16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
| 16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
| 16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
| 17377 | All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré] |
| 17376 | We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré] |
| 17390 | Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré] |
| 17389 | A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré] |
| 17388 | It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré] |
| 5961 | The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato] |
| 17374 | The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré] |
| 21866 | Hobbes and Spinoza use 'conatus' to denote all endeavour for advantage in nature [Lord] |
| 17378 | Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré] |
| 283 | The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato] |
| 282 | Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato] |
| 281 | The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato] |
| 22559 | Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle] |
| 17381 | Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré] |
| 17385 | Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré] |
| 17375 | Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré] |
| 17379 | Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré] |
| 17384 | Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré] |
| 17387 | Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré] |
| 17382 | Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré] |
| 17380 | Wales may count as fish [Dupré] |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |
| 279 | Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato] |