101 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] |
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] |
6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
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] |
9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
639 | Socrates developed definitions as the basis of syllogisms, and also inductive arguments [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
9672 | Free logic is one of the few first-order non-classical logics [Priest,G] |
9697 | X1 x X2 x X3... x Xn indicates the 'cartesian product' of those sets [Priest,G] |
9685 | <a,b&62; is a set whose members occur in the order shown [Priest,G] |
9675 | a ∈ X says a is an object in set X; a ∉ X says a is not in X [Priest,G] |
9674 | {x; A(x)} is a set of objects satisfying the condition A(x) [Priest,G] |
9673 | {a1, a2, ...an} indicates that a set comprising just those objects [Priest,G] |
9677 | Φ indicates the empty set, which has no members [Priest,G] |
9676 | {a} is the 'singleton' set of a (not the object a itself) [Priest,G] |
9679 | X⊂Y means set X is a 'proper subset' of set Y [Priest,G] |
9678 | X⊆Y means set X is a 'subset' of set Y [Priest,G] |
9681 | X = Y means the set X equals the set Y [Priest,G] |
9683 | X ∩ Y indicates the 'intersection' of sets X and Y, the objects which are in both sets [Priest,G] |
9682 | X∪Y indicates the 'union' of all the things in sets X and Y [Priest,G] |
9684 | Y - X is the 'relative complement' of X with respect to Y; the things in Y that are not in X [Priest,G] |
9694 | The 'relative complement' is things in the second set not in the first [Priest,G] |
9693 | The 'intersection' of two sets is a set of the things that are in both sets [Priest,G] |
9692 | The 'union' of two sets is a set containing all the things in either of the sets [Priest,G] |
9698 | The 'induction clause' says complex formulas retain the properties of their basic formulas [Priest,G] |
9688 | A 'singleton' is a set with only one member [Priest,G] |
9687 | A 'member' of a set is one of the objects in the set [Priest,G] |
9695 | An 'ordered pair' (or ordered n-tuple) is a set with its members in a particular order [Priest,G] |
9696 | A 'cartesian product' of sets is the set of all the n-tuples with one member in each of the sets [Priest,G] |
9686 | A 'set' is a collection of objects [Priest,G] |
9689 | The 'empty set' or 'null set' has no members [Priest,G] |
9690 | A set is a 'subset' of another set if all of its members are in that set [Priest,G] |
9691 | A 'proper subset' is smaller than the containing set [Priest,G] |
9680 | The empty set Φ is a subset of every set (including itself) [Priest,G] |
6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
1652 | Socrates did not consider universals or definitions as having separate existence, but Plato made Forms of them [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
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] |
6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
195 | No one willingly commits an evil or base act [Socrates] |
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] |
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] |
6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
185 | Socrates despised good looks [Socrates, by Plato] |
5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
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] |
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] |