89 ideas
6095 | The business of metaphysics is to describe the world [Russell] |
11159 | My account shows how the concept works, rather than giving an analysis [Fine,K] |
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] |
6106 | Reducing entities and premisses makes error less likely [Russell] |
8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
11157 | Modern philosophy has largely abandoned real definitions, apart from sortals [Fine,K] |
11171 | Defining a term and giving the essence of an object don't just resemble - they are the same [Fine,K] |
6090 | Facts make propositions true or false, and are expressed by whole sentences [Russell] |
18348 | Not only atomic truths, but also general and negative truths, have truth-makers [Russell, by Rami] |
6103 | Normally a class with only one member is a problem, because the class and the member are identical [Russell] |
6092 | In a logically perfect language, there will be just one word for every simple object [Russell] |
6101 | Romulus does not occur in the proposition 'Romulus did not exist' [Russell] |
6102 | You can understand 'author of Waverley', but to understand 'Scott' you must know who it applies to [Russell] |
10423 | There are a set of criteria for pinning down a logically proper name [Russell, by Sainsbury] |
7744 | Treat description using quantifiers, and treat proper names as descriptions [Russell, by McCullogh] |
10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
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] |
16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
6104 | Numbers are classes of classes, and hence fictions of fictions [Russell] |
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] |
11151 | An object is dependent if its essence prevents it from existing without some other object [Fine,K] |
21708 | Russell's new logical atomist was of particulars, universals and facts (not platonic propositions) [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
19051 | Russell's atomic facts are actually compounds, and his true logical atoms are sense data [Russell, by Quine] |
6089 | Logical atomism aims at logical atoms as the last residue of analysis [Russell] |
6100 | Once you have enumerated all the atomic facts, there is a further fact that those are all the facts [Russell] |
6105 | Logical atoms aims to get down to ultimate simples, with their own unique reality [Russell] |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
21709 | You can't name all the facts, so they are not real, but are what propositions assert [Russell] |
18376 | Russell asserts atomic, existential, negative and general facts [Russell, by Armstrong] |
5465 | Modern trope theory tries, like logical atomism, to reduce things to elementary states [Russell, by Ellis] |
6060 | 'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true [Russell] |
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] |
212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [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] |
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] |
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
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] |
11152 | Essences are either taken as real definitions, or as necessary properties [Fine,K] |
11161 | Essentially having a property is naturally expressed as 'the property it must have to be what it is' [Fine,K] |
11160 | Simple modal essentialism refers to necessary properties of an object [Fine,K] |
11158 | Essentialist claims can be formulated more clearly with quantified modal logic [Fine,K] |
11167 | Metaphysical necessity is a special case of essence, not vice versa [Fine,K] |
16537 | Essence as necessary properties produces a profusion of essential properties [Fine,K, by Lowe] |
11163 | The nature of singleton Socrates has him as a member, but not vice versa [Fine,K] |
11164 | It is not part of the essence of Socrates that a huge array of necessary truths should hold [Fine,K] |
10935 | An essential property of something must be bound up with what it is to be that thing [Fine,K, by Rami] |
10936 | Essential properties are part of an object's 'definition' [Fine,K, by Rami] |
11165 | If Socrates lacks necessary existence, then his nature cannot require his parents' existence [Fine,K] |
15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
6099 | Modal terms are properties of propositional functions, not of propositions [Russell] |
11166 | The subject of a proposition need not be the source of its necessity [Fine,K] |
11169 | Conceptual necessities rest on the nature of all concepts [Fine,K] |
11162 | Socrates is necessarily distinct from the Eiffel Tower, but that is not part of his essence [Fine,K] |
11168 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the nature of all objects [Fine,K] |
6098 | Perception goes straight to the fact, and not through the proposition [Russell] |
6097 | The theory of error seems to need the existence of the non-existent [Russell] |
9022 | Russell uses 'propositional function' to refer to both predicates and to attributes [Quine on Russell] |
6091 | Propositions don't name facts, because each fact corresponds to a proposition and its negation [Russell] |
21702 | In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine] |
6094 | An inventory of the world does not need to include propositions [Russell] |
6096 | I no longer believe in propositions, especially concerning falsehoods [Russell] |
21712 | I know longer believe in shadowy things like 'that today is Wednesday' when it is actually Tuesday [Russell] |
11170 | Analytic truth may only be true in virtue of the meanings of certain terms [Fine,K] |
11172 | The meaning of 'bachelor' is irrelevant to the meaning of 'unmarried man' [Fine,K] |
6093 | The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared [Russell] |
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] |
6119 | You can discuss 'God exists', so 'God' is a description, not a name [Russell] |