51 ideas
3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
20728 | Metaphysics is hopeless with its present epistemology; common-sense realism is needed [Colvin] |
3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
20726 | We can only distinguish self from non-self if there is an inflexible external reality [Colvin] |
20727 | Common-sense realism rests on our interests and practical life [Colvin] |
20729 | Arguments that objects are unknowable or non-existent assume the knower's existence [Colvin] |
20730 | If objects are doubted because their appearances change, that presupposes one object [Colvin] |
20731 | The idea that everything is relations is contradictory; relations are part of the concept of things [Colvin] |
4913 | Brain lesions can erase whole categories of perception, suggesting they are hard-wired [Carter,R] |
3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
4910 | Sense organs don't discriminate; they reduce various inputs to the same electrical pulses [Carter,R] |
4911 | The recognition sequence is: classify, name, locate, associate, feel [Carter,R, by PG] |
4919 | There seems to be no dividing line between a memory and a thought [Carter,R] |
4908 | No one knows if animals are conscious [Carter,R] |
4902 | Pain doesn't have one brain location, but is linked to attention and emotion [Carter,R] |
4904 | Proper brains appear at seven weeks, and neonates have as many neurons as adults do [Carter,R] |
4915 | In primates, brain size correlates closely with size of social group [Carter,R] |
4917 | Consciousness involves awareness, perception, self-awareness, attention and reflection [Carter,R] |
4916 | There is enormous evidence that consciousness arises in the frontal lobes of the brain [Carter,R] |
4905 | Normal babies seem to have overlapping sense experiences [Carter,R] |
4918 | In blindsight V1 (normal vision) is inactive, but V5 (movement) lights up [Carter,R] |
4912 | Out-of-body experiences may be due to temporary loss of proprioception [Carter,R] |
4903 | Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R] |
4920 | Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R] |
4906 | Babies show highly emotional brain events, but may well be unaware of them [Carter,R] |
4909 | The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them [Carter,R] |
4914 | A frog will starve to death surrounded by dead flies [Carter,R] |
4907 | The 'locus coeruleus' is one of several candidates for the brain's 'pleasure centre' [Carter,R] |
3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |