69 ideas
| 5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
| 13773 | For the truth you need Prodicus's fifty-drachma course, not his one-drachma course [Socrates] |
| 7421 | A philosopher is one who cares about what other people care about [Socrates, by Foucault] |
| 1649 | Socrates opened philosophy to all, but Plato confined moral enquiry to a tiny elite [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 5842 | Philosophical discussion involves dividing subject-matter into categories [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 648 | Socrates began the quest for something universal with his definitions, but he didn't make them separate [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
| 164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
| 1647 | In Socratic dialogue you must say what you believe, so unasserted premises are not debated [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 115 | Socrates was pleased if his mistakes were proved wrong [Socrates] |
| 22099 | The method of Socrates shows the student is discovering the truth within himself [Socrates, by Carlisle] |
| 5844 | Socrates always proceeded in argument by general agreement at each stage [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
| 5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
| 5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
| 1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| 5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
| 3161 | If mind is just an explanation, the explainer must have beliefs [Rey on Dennett] |
| 5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
| 5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
| 5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
| 5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
| 3177 | You couldn't drive a car without folk psychology [Dennett] |
| 23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
| 5843 | People do what they think they should do, and only ever do what they think they should do [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 5253 | Socrates was shocked by the idea of akrasia, but observation shows that it happens [Aristotle on Socrates] |
| 1653 | Socrates did not accept the tripartite soul (which permits akrasia) [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 199 | The common belief is that people can know the best without acting on it [Socrates] |
| 195 | No one willingly commits an evil or base act [Socrates] |
| 5839 | For Socrates, wisdom and prudence were the same thing [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 5867 | For Socrates, virtues are forms of knowledge, so knowing justice produces justice [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 5069 | Socrates was the first to base ethics upon reason, and use reason to explain it [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
| 5836 | All human virtues are increased by study and practice [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 5840 | The wise perform good actions, and people fail to be good without wisdom [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
| 185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
| 5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
| 5070 | Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
| 5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
| 5838 | A well-made dung basket is fine, and a badly-made gold shield is base, because of function [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 5837 | Things are both good and fine by the same standard [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 3017 | The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance [Socrates, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1646 | Socrates was the first to put 'eudaimonia' at the centre of ethics [Socrates, by Vlastos] |
| 1663 | By 'areté' Socrates means just what we mean by moral virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 4323 | Socrates is torn between intellectual virtue, which is united and teachable, and natural virtue, which isn't [PG on Socrates] |
| 8003 | Socrates agrees that virtue is teachable, but then denies that there are teachers [Socrates, by MacIntyre] |
| 126 | We should ask what sort of people we want to be [Socrates] |
| 4111 | Socrates believed that basically there is only one virtue, the power of right judgement [Socrates, by Williams,B] |
| 7808 | Socrates made the civic values of justice and friendship paramount [Socrates, by Grayling] |
| 23907 | Courage is scientific knowledge [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 7585 | Socrates emphasises that the knower is an existing individual, with existence his main task [Socrates, by Kierkegaard] |
| 5841 | Obedience to the law gives the best life, and success in war [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 1661 | Socrates was the first to grasp that a cruelty is not justified by another cruelty [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 5846 | A lover using force is a villain, but a seducer is much worse, because he corrupts character [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
| 1657 | Socrates holds that right reason entails virtue, and this must also apply to the gods [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 1662 | A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
| 5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |