68 ideas
| 13310 | Wisdom does not lie in books, and unread people can also become wise [Seneca] |
| 13295 | Wise people escape necessity by willing it [Seneca] |
| 13317 | Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca] |
| 13293 | What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca] |
| 13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
| 13313 | Even philosophers have got bogged down in analysing tiny bits of language [Seneca] |
| 9449 | The plausible Barcan formula implies modality in the actual world [Bird] |
| 9501 | If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird] |
| 9500 | If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird] |
| 9502 | There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird] |
| 9477 | Categorical properties are not modally fixed, but change across possible worlds [Bird] |
| 9490 | The categoricalist idea is that a property is only individuated by being itself [Bird] |
| 9495 | If we abstractly define a property, that doesn't mean some object could possess it [Bird] |
| 9492 | Categoricalists take properties to be quiddities, with no essential difference between them [Bird] |
| 9503 | To name an abundant property is either a Fregean concept, or a simple predicate [Bird] |
| 14540 | Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 9450 | If all properties are potencies, and stimuli and manifestation characterise them, there is a regress [Bird] |
| 9498 | The essence of a potency involves relations, e.g. mass, to impressed force and acceleration [Bird] |
| 9474 | A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird] |
| 9475 | A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird] |
| 9499 | Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird] |
| 9486 | Why should a universal's existence depend on instantiation in an existing particular? [Bird] |
| 9472 | Resemblance itself needs explanation, presumably in terms of something held in common [Bird] |
| 9482 | If the laws necessarily imply p, that doesn't give a new 'nomological' necessity [Bird] |
| 9481 | Logical necessitation is not a kind of necessity; George Orwell not being Eric Blair is not a real possibility [Bird] |
| 9505 | Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird] |
| 9491 | Haecceitism says identity is independent of qualities and without essence [Bird] |
| 9487 | We can't reject all explanations because of a regress; inexplicable A can still explain B [Bird] |
| 13297 | To the four causes Plato adds a fifth, the idea which guided the event [Seneca] |
| 13307 | If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul [Seneca] |
| 21399 | Referring to a person, and speaking about him, are very different [Seneca] |
| 13325 | Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason [Seneca] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 13294 | We know death, which is like before birth; ceasing to be and never beginning are the same [Seneca] |
| 13299 | Living is nothing wonderful; what matters is to die well [Seneca] |
| 13300 | It is as silly to lament ceasing to be as to lament not having lived in the remote past [Seneca] |
| 13321 | Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca] |
| 13292 | Selfishness does not produce happiness; to live for yourself, live for others [Seneca] |
| 13303 | A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca] |
| 13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| 13323 | The whole point of pleasure-seeking is novelty, and abandoning established ways [Seneca] |
| 13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
| 13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
| 13305 | Character is ruined by not looking back over our pasts, since the future rests on the past [Seneca] |
| 13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
| 13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
| 13315 | To govern used to mean to serve, not to rule; rulers did not test their powers over those who bestowed it [Seneca] |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| 13290 | One joy of learning is making teaching possible [Seneca] |
| 13322 | Both teachers and pupils should aim at one thing - the improvement of the pupil [Seneca] |
| 13298 | Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca] |
| 13320 | Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca] |
| 13319 | If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca] |
| 9493 | We should explain causation by powers, not powers by causation [Bird] |
| 9494 | Singularism about causes is wrong, as the universals involved imply laws [Bird] |
| 9507 | Laws are explanatory relationships of things, which supervene on their essences [Bird] |
| 9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |
| 9496 | That other diamonds are hard does not explain why this one is [Bird] |
| 9479 | Dispositional essentialism says laws (and laws about laws) are guaranteed regularities [Bird] |
| 9473 | Laws cannot offer unified explanations if they don't involve universals [Bird] |
| 9484 | If the universals for laws must be instantiated, a vanishing particular could destroy a law [Bird] |
| 9506 | Salt necessarily dissolves in water, because of the law which makes the existence of salt possible [Bird] |
| 23713 | Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers [Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| 9489 | Essentialism can't use conditionals to explain regularities, because of possible interventions [Bird] |
| 13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
| 9504 | The relational view of space-time doesn't cover times and places where things could be [Bird] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |