70 ideas
8060 | In the 17th-18th centuries morality offered a cure for egoism, through altruism [MacIntyre] |
8053 | Twentieth century social life is re-enacting eighteenth century philosophy [MacIntyre] |
5196 | Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer] |
5189 | Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer] |
8047 | Philosophy has been marginalised by its failure in the Enlightenment to replace religion [MacIntyre] |
7919 | Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C] |
5195 | Critics say analysis can only show the parts, and not their distinctive configuration [Ayer] |
5179 | Philosophy deals with the questions that scientists do not wish to handle [Ayer] |
8062 | Proof is a barren idea in philosophy, and the best philosophy never involves proof [MacIntyre] |
4749 | We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer] |
5202 | Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer] |
6523 | Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
5183 | Only tautologies can be certain; other propositions can only be probable [Ayer] |
6525 | Logical positivists could never give the sense-data equivalent of 'there is a table next door' [Robinson,H on Ayer] |
5170 | Material things are constructions from actual and possible occurrences of sense-contents [Ayer] |
5198 | We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer] |
2619 | Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer] |
5197 | By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer] |
5204 | To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer] |
6524 | Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
5193 | Causal and representative theories of perception are wrong as they refer to unobservables [Ayer] |
5200 | The main claim of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge [Ayer] |
4729 | Empiricism lacked a decent account of the a priori, until Ayer said it was entirely analytic [O'Grady on Ayer] |
5180 | All propositions (especially 'metaphysics') must begin with the senses [Ayer] |
5169 | My empiricism logically distinguishes analytic and synthetic propositions, and metaphysical verbiage [Ayer] |
5185 | It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer] |
5199 | Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer] |
8052 | To find empiricism and science in the same culture is surprising, as they are really incompatible [MacIntyre] |
8057 | Unpredictability doesn't entail inexplicability, and predictability doesn't entail explicability [MacIntyre] |
8054 | Social sciences discover no law-like generalisations, and tend to ignore counterexamples [MacIntyre] |
5190 | The induction problem is to prove generalisations about the future based on the past [Ayer] |
5191 | We can't use the uniformity of nature to prove induction, as that would be circular [Ayer] |
5177 | Other minds are 'metaphysical' objects, because I can never observe their experiences [Ayer] |
5178 | A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer] |
5172 | If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer] |
5173 | Two experiences belong to one self if their contents belong with one body [Ayer] |
5176 | Empiricists can define personal identity as bodily identity, which consists of sense-contents [Ayer] |
21050 | I can only make decisions if I see myself as part of a story [MacIntyre] |
5171 | The supposed 'gulf' between mind and matter is based on the senseless concept of 'substances' [Ayer] |
8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
5181 | A sentence is factually significant to someone if they know how to verify its proposition [Ayer] |
5184 | Factual propositions imply (in conjunction with a few other premises) possible experiences [Ayer] |
5186 | Tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions [Ayer] |
8059 | The good life for man is the life spent seeking the good life for man [MacIntyre] |
8034 | We still have the appearance and language of morality, but we no longer understand it [MacIntyre] |
8036 | Unlike expressions of personal preference, evaluative expressions do not depend on context [MacIntyre] |
8049 | Moral judgements now are anachronisms from a theistic age [MacIntyre] |
8045 | The failure of Enlightenment attempts to justify morality will explain our own culture [MacIntyre] |
5205 | Moral intuition is worthless if there is no criterion to decide between intuitions [Ayer] |
8051 | Mention of 'intuition' in morality means something has gone wrong with the argument [MacIntyre] |
8048 | When 'man' is thought of individually, apart from all roles, it ceases to be a functional concept [MacIntyre] |
8035 | In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre] |
8037 | The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre] |
8040 | Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre] |
8042 | Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre] |
23725 | Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M] |
5206 | To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer] |
8058 | Maybe we can only understand rules if we first understand the virtues [MacIntyre] |
7097 | Virtue is secondary to a role-figure, defined within a culture [MacIntyre, by Statman] |
8043 | Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies [MacIntyre] |
8061 | If morality just is emotion, there are no external criteria for judging emotions [MacIntyre] |
8038 | Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre] |
8050 | There are no natural or human rights, and belief in them is nonsense [MacIntyre] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
5208 | A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer] |
8055 | If God is omniscient, he confronts no as yet unmade decisions, so decisions are impossible [MacIntyre] |
5187 | When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer] |
5207 | If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer] |
5209 | The 'truths' expressed by theists are not literally significant [Ayer] |