70 ideas
18859 | Metaphysics is a quest for truthmakers [Tallant] |
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
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] |
18861 | Maybe number statements can be paraphrased into quantifications plus identities [Tallant] |
18866 | Maybe only 'positive' truths need truth-makers [Tallant] |
18860 | A truthmaker is the minimal portion of reality that will do the job [Tallant] |
18863 | What is the truthmaker for a possible new power? [Tallant] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
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] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
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] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
18864 | The wisdom of Plato and of Socrates are not the same property [Tallant] |
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] |
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] |
218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [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] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
18865 | Substance must have two properties: individuation, and property-bearing [Tallant] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
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] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
18862 | Are propositions all the thoughts and sentences that are possible? [Tallant] |
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] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |