43 ideas
| 4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
| 4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
| 7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
| 7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
| 6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
| 4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
| 6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
| 22355 | In the realist view, the real external world explains how it (and perceptions of it) are possible [Williams,B] |
| 24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
| 3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
| 3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
| 4244 | It is very confused to deduce a nonrelativist morality of universal toleration from relativism [Williams,B] |
| 4243 | Our ability to react to an alien culture shows that ethical thought extends beyond cultural boundaries [Williams,B] |
| 7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
| 7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
| 4114 | Philosophers try to produce ethical theories because they falsely assume that ethics can be simple [Williams,B] |
| 4128 | Intuitionism has been demolished by critics, and no longer looks interesting [Williams,B] |
| 4132 | The category of person is a weak basis for ethics, because it is not fixed but comes in degrees [Williams,B] |
| 4134 | The weakness of prescriptivism is shown by "I simply don't like staying at good hotels" [Williams,B] |
| 4135 | Some ethical ideas, such as 'treachery' and 'promise', seem to express a union of facts and values [Williams,B] |
| 4120 | It is an error of consequentialism to think we just aim at certain states of affairs; we also want to act [Williams,B] |
| 4252 | Promise keeping increases reliability, by making deliberation focus on something which would be overlooked [Williams,B] |
| 4116 | A weakness of contractual theories is the position of a person of superior ability and power [Williams,B] |
| 4112 | A crucial feature of moral thought is second-order desire - the desire to have certain desires [Williams,B] |
| 4113 | 'Deon' in Greek means what one must do; there was no word meaning 'duty' [Williams,B] |
| 4250 | The concept of a 'duty to myself' is fraudulent [Williams,B] |
| 4110 | Obligation and duty look backwards (because of a promise or job), although the acts are in the future [Williams,B] |
| 4249 | "Ought implies can" is a famous formula in connection with moral obligation [Williams,B] |
| 4248 | Not all moral deliberations lead to obligations; some merely reveal what 'may' be done [Williams,B] |
| 4121 | Why should I think of myself as both the legislator and the citizen who follows the laws? [Williams,B] |
| 4122 | If the self becomes completely impartial, it no longer has enough identity to worry about its interests [Williams,B] |
| 4124 | Utilitarian benevolence involves no particular attachments, and is immune to the inverse square law [Williams,B] |
| 3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
| 4245 | Ethical conviction must be to some extent passive, and can't just depend on the will and decisions [Williams,B] |
| 4246 | Taking responsibility won't cure ethical uncertainty by; we are uncertain what to decide [Williams,B] |
| 4247 | It is a mark of our having ethical values that we aim to reproduce them in our children [Williams,B] |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| 4131 | Most women see an early miscarriage and a late stillbirth as being very different in character [Williams,B] |
| 4133 | Speciesism isn't like racism, because the former implies a viewpoint which belongs to no one [Williams,B] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| 6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
| 3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |
| 3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |