119 ideas
| 14857 | The highest wisdom has the guise of simplicity [Nietzsche] |
| 14854 | Deep thinkers know that they are always wrong [Nietzsche] |
| 14833 | Comedy is a transition from fear to exuberance [Nietzsche] |
| 14853 | Truth finds fewest champions not when it is dangerous, but when it is boring [Nietzsche] |
| 24075 | Convictions, more than lies, are the great enemy of truth [Nietzsche] |
| 3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
| 3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
| 3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
| 14858 | Being certain presumes that there are absolute truths, and means of arriving at them [Nietzsche] |
| 3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
| 14830 | Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche] |
| 3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
| 3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
| 3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
| 3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
| 3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| 3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
| 3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
| 3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
| 3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
| 3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
| 3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
| 3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
| 3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
| 3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
| 20378 | Just as skin hides the horrors of the body, vanity conceals the passions of the soul [Nietzsche] |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| 3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
| 3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
| 3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
| 3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
| 3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
| 3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
| 3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
| 3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
| 3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
| 3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
| 3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
| 3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
| 3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
| 3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
| 3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
| 3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
| 3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
| 3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
| 3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
| 3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
| 3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
| 3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
| 3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
| 3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| 3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
| 3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
| 3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
| 3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
| 3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
| 3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
| 3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
| 3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
| 3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
| 3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
| 3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
| 3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
| 3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
| 3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
| 3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
| 3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
| 3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
| 14820 | People always do what they think is right, according to the degree of their intellect [Nietzsche] |
| 14856 | Our judgment seems to cause our nature, but actually judgment arises from our nature [Nietzsche] |
| 14842 | Why are the strong tastes of other people so contagious? [Nietzsche] |
| 14835 | Artists are not especially passionate, but they pretend to be [Nietzsche] |
| 14807 | The history of morality rests on an error called 'responsibility', which rests on an error called 'free will' [Nietzsche] |
| 14823 | Ceasing to believe in human responsibility is bitter, if you had based the nobility of humanity on it [Nietzsche] |
| 14824 | It is absurd to blame nature and necessity; we should no more praise actions than we praise plants or artworks [Nietzsche] |
| 22473 | Nietzsche said the will doesn't exist, so it can't ground moral responsibility [Nietzsche, by Foot] |
| 14812 | Intellect is tied to morality, because it requires good memory and powerful imagination [Nietzsche] |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| 14810 | Originally it was the rulers who requited good for good and evil for evil who were called 'good' [Nietzsche] |
| 14831 | No one has ever done anything that was entirely for other people [Nietzsche] |
| 14855 | Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche] |
| 14815 | We get enormous pleasure from tales of noble actions [Nietzsche] |
| 14849 | We can only achieve happy moments, not happy eras [Nietzsche] |
| 14818 | First morality is force, then custom, then acceptance, then instinct, then a pleasure - and finally 'virtue' [Nietzsche] |
| 20103 | You are mastered by your own virtues, but you must master them, and turn them into tools [Nietzsche] |
| 14817 | The 'good' man does the moral thing as if by nature, easily and gladly, after a long inheritance [Nietzsche] |
| 3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
| 14809 | All societies of good men give a priority to gratitude [Nietzsche] |
| 14816 | Justice (fairness) originates among roughly equal powers (as the Melian dialogues show) [Nietzsche] |
| 14821 | Apart from philosophers, most people rightly have a low estimate of pity [Nietzsche] |
| 20112 | Pity consoles those who suffer, because they see that they still have the power to hurt [Nietzsche] |
| 14843 | Women can be friends with men, but only some physical antipathy will maintain it [Nietzsche] |
| 14841 | Many people are better at having good friends than being a good friend [Nietzsche] |
| 14811 | In Homer it is the contemptible person, not the harmful person, who is bad [Nietzsche] |
| 20111 | We could live more naturally, relishing the spectacle, and not thinking we are special [Nietzsche] |
| 14844 | People do not experience boredom if they have never learned to work properly [Nietzsche] |
| 14808 | Over huge periods of time human character would change endlessly [Nietzsche] |
| 14822 | If self-defence is moral, then so are most expressions of 'immoral' egoism [Nietzsche] |
| 14838 | The state aims to protect individuals from one another [Nietzsche] |
| 14852 | Culture cannot do without passions and vices [Nietzsche] |
| 14846 | If we want the good life for the greatest number, we must let them decide on the good life [Nietzsche] |
| 14819 | Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche] |
| 14847 | Laws that are well thought out, or laws that are easy to understand? [Nietzsche] |
| 14814 | Execution is worse than murder, because we are using the victim, and really we are the guilty [Nietzsche] |
| 14836 | People will enthusiastically pursue an unwanted war, once sacrifices have been made [Nietzsche] |
| 14845 | Don't crush girls with dull Gymnasium education, the way we have crushed boys! [Nietzsche] |
| 14848 | Education in large states is mediocre, like cooking in large kitchens [Nietzsche] |
| 14839 | Interest in education gains strength when we lose interest in God [Nietzsche] |
| 14834 | Teachers only gather knowledge for their pupils, and can't be serious about themselves [Nietzsche] |
| 14825 | In religious thought nature is a complex of arbitrary acts by conscious beings [Nietzsche] |
| 14826 | Modern man wants laws of nature in order to submit to them [Nietzsche] |
| 14827 | The Greeks saw the gods not as their masters, but as idealised versions of themselves [Nietzsche] |
| 14832 | The Sermon on the Mount is vanity - praying to one part of oneself, and demonising the rest [Nietzsche] |
| 14837 | Christ seems warm hearted, and suppressed intellect in favour of the intellectually weak [Nietzsche] |
| 14813 | Science rejecting the teaching of Christianity in favour of Epicurus shows the superiority of the latter [Nietzsche] |
| 14850 | Christ was the noblest human being [Nietzsche] |
| 14828 | Religion is tempting if your life is boring, but you can't therefore impose it on the busy people [Nietzsche] |