51 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
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] |
3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
18806 | Frege thought traditional categories had psychological and linguistic impurities [Frege, by Rumfitt] |
8490 | First-level functions have objects as arguments; second-level functions take functions as arguments [Frege] |
8492 | Relations are functions with two arguments [Frege] |
8487 | Arithmetic is a development of logic, so arithmetical symbolism must expand into logical symbolism [Frege] |
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] |
18899 | Frege takes the existence of horses to be part of their concept [Frege, by Sommers] |
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] |
4028 | Frege allows either too few properties (as extensions) or too many (as predicates) [Mellor/Oliver on Frege] |
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] |
8489 | The concept 'object' is too simple for analysis; unlike a function, it is an expression with no empty place [Frege] |
15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
9947 | Concepts are the ontological counterparts of predicative expressions [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
10319 | An assertion about the concept 'horse' must indirectly speak of an object [Frege, by Hale] |
8488 | A concept is a function whose value is always a truth-value [Frege] |
9948 | Unlike objects, concepts are inherently incomplete [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
4972 | I may regard a thought about Phosphorus as true, and the same thought about Hesperus as false [Frege] |
1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
8491 | The Ontological Argument fallaciously treats existence as a first-level concept [Frege] |