57 ideas
13786 | Wisdom is called 'beautiful', because it performs fine works [Plato] |
13780 | Good people are no different from wise ones [Plato] |
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
13778 | A dialectician is someone who knows how to ask and to answer questions [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] |
15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
13776 | Truths say of what is that it is, falsehoods say of what is that it is not [Plato] |
13790 | A name-giver might misname something, then force other names to conform to it [Plato] |
13777 | A name is a sort of tool [Plato] |
13791 | Things must be known before they are named, so it can't be the names that give us knowledge [Plato] |
13789 | Anyone who knows a thing's name also knows the thing [Plato] |
15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
2063 | How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato] |
15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
13775 | We only succeed in cutting if we use appropriate tools, not if we approach it randomly [Plato] |
13787 | Doesn't each thing have an essence, just as it has other qualities? [Plato] |
15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
13774 | Things don't have every attribute, and essence isn't private, so each thing has an essence [Plato] |
15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
13772 | Is the being or essence of each thing private to each person? [Plato] |
15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
13788 | If we made a perfect duplicate of Cratylus, there would be two Cratyluses [Plato] |
15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
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] |
3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
13792 | There can't be any knowledge if things are constantly changing [Plato] |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
13781 | Soul causes the body to live, and gives it power to breathe and to be revitalized [Plato] |
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] |
13785 | 'Arete' signifies lack of complexity and a free-flowing soul [Plato] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
13779 | The natural offspring of a lion is called a 'lion' (but what about the offspring of a king?) [Plato] |
13783 | Even the gods love play [Plato] |