28 ideas
1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
1644 | Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato] |
287 | Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato] |
20478 | In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato] |
11278 | What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato] |
1643 | If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato] |
7022 | To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato] |
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
1641 | Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato] |
10784 | Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato] |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
14347 | A 'finkish' disposition is one that is lost immediately after the appropriate stimulus [Corry] |
14348 | An 'antidote' allows a manifestation to begin, but then blocks it [Corry] |
14350 | If a disposition is never instantiated, it shouldn't be part of our theory of nature [Corry] |
16122 | Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato] |
10422 | The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato] |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
14351 | Maybe an experiment unmasks an essential disposition, and reveals its regularities [Corry] |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
14346 | Dispositional essentialism says fundamental laws of nature are strict, not ceteris paribus [Corry] |