94 ideas
| 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] |
| 4194 | Metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality as a whole [Lowe] |
| 4214 | Maybe such concepts as causation, identity and existence are primitive and irreducible [Lowe] |
| 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] |
| 4222 | If all that exists is what is being measured, what about the people and instruments doing the measuring? [Lowe] |
| 4217 | It is more extravagant, in general, to revise one's logic than to augment one's ontology [Lowe] |
| 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] |
| 4229 | An infinite series of tasks can't be completed because it has no last member [Lowe] |
| 4240 | It might be argued that mathematics does not, or should not, aim at truth [Lowe] |
| 4241 | If there are infinite numbers and finite concrete objects, this implies that numbers are abstract objects [Lowe] |
| 4239 | Nominalists deny abstract objects, because we can have no reason to believe in their existence [Lowe] |
| 4202 | Change can be of composition (the component parts), or quality (properties), or substance [Lowe] |
| 4201 | Four theories of qualitative change are 'a is F now', or 'a is F-at-t', or 'a-at-t is F', or 'a is-at-t F' [Lowe, by PG] |
| 4219 | Numerically distinct events of the same kind (like two battles) can coincide in space and time [Lowe] |
| 4221 | Maybe modern physics requires an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology [Lowe] |
| 4220 | Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time [Lowe] |
| 4225 | Events are changes in the properties of or relations between things [Lowe] |
| 17306 | If ground is transitive and irreflexive, it has a strict partial ordering, giving structure [Schaffer,J] |
| 17304 | As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J] |
| 4196 | The main categories of existence are either universal and particular, or abstract and concrete [Lowe] |
| 4234 | Trope theory says blueness is a real feature of objects, but not the same as an identical blue found elsewhere [Lowe] |
| 4235 | Maybe a cushion is just a bundle of tropes, such as roundness, blueness and softness [Lowe] |
| 4236 | Tropes seem to be abstract entities, because they can't exist alone, but must come in bundles [Lowe] |
| 4197 | The category of universals can be sub-divided into properties and relations [Lowe] |
| 1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 4232 | Nominalists believe that only particulars exist [Lowe] |
| 4205 | 'Is non-self-exemplifying' is a predicate which cannot denote a property (as it would be a contradiction) [Lowe] |
| 4233 | If 'blueness' is a set of particulars, there is danger of circularity, or using universals, in identifying the set [Lowe] |
| 4206 | Conventionalists see the world as an amorphous lump without identities, but are we part of the lump? [Lowe] |
| 4204 | Statues can't survive much change to their shape, unlike lumps of bronze, which must retain material [Lowe] |
| 4200 | If old parts are stored and then appropriated, they are no longer part of the original (which is the renovated ship). [Lowe] |
| 4198 | If 5% replacement preserves a ship, we can replace 4% and 4% again, and still retain the ship [Lowe] |
| 4199 | A renovation or a reconstruction of an original ship would be accepted, as long as the other one didn't exist [Lowe] |
| 4203 | Identity of Indiscernibles (same properties, same thing) ) is not Leibniz's Law (same thing, same properties) [Lowe] |
| 4195 | It is impossible to reach a valid false conclusion from true premises, so reason itself depends on possibility [Lowe] |
| 4207 | We might eliminate 'possible' and 'necessary' in favour of quantification over possible worlds [Lowe] |
| 4223 | Unfalsifiability may be a failure in an empirical theory, but it is a virtue in metaphysics [Lowe] |
| 4193 | The behaviour of persons and social groups seems to need rational rather than causal explanation [Lowe] |
| 17308 | Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J] |
| 1650 | For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 23252 | Socrates first proposed that we are run by mind or reason [Socrates, by Frede,M] |
| 4238 | The centre of mass of the solar system is a non-causal abstract object, despite having a location [Lowe] |
| 4237 | Concrete and abstract objects are distinct because the former have causal powers and relations [Lowe] |
| 1653 | Socrates did not accept the tripartite soul (which permits akrasia) [Vlastos on Socrates] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
| 5070 | Socrates conservatively assumed that Athenian conventions were natural and true [Taylor,R on Socrates] |
| 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] |
| 17305 | I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J] |
| 17307 | Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J] |
| 4210 | If the concept of a cause says it precedes its effect, that rules out backward causation by definition [Lowe] |
| 4215 | It seems proper to say that only substances (rather than events) have causal powers [Lowe] |
| 4209 | The theories of fact causation and event causation are both worth serious consideration [Lowe] |
| 4211 | Causal overdetermination is either actual overdetermination, or pre-emption, or the fail-safe case [Lowe] |
| 4213 | Causation may be instances of laws (seen either as constant conjunctions, or as necessities) [Lowe] |
| 4212 | Hume showed that causation could at most be natural necessity, never metaphysical necessity [Lowe] |
| 14581 | The normative view says laws show the natural behaviour of natural kind members [Lowe, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| 4208 | 'If he wasn't born he wouldn't have died' doesn't mean birth causes death, so causation isn't counterfactual [Lowe] |
| 4224 | If motion is change of distance between objects, it involves no intrinsic change in the objects [Lowe] |
| 4227 | Surfaces, lines and points are not, strictly speaking, parts of space, but 'limits', which are abstract [Lowe] |
| 4228 | If space is entirely relational, what makes a boundary, or a place unoccupied by physical objects? [Lowe] |
| 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] |