83 ideas
| 13310 | Wisdom does not lie in books, and unread people can also become wise [Seneca] |
| 13295 | Wise people escape necessity by willing it [Seneca] |
| 13317 | Philosophy aims at happiness [Seneca] |
| 13293 | What philosophy offers humanity is guidance [Seneca] |
| 13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
| 13313 | Even philosophers have got bogged down in analysing tiny bits of language [Seneca] |
| 3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
| 3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
| 3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
| 3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
| 3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
| 23966 | The personal view can still be objective, so I call sciences 'impersonal', rather than objective [Goldie] |
| 3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
| 3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
| 3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
| 3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
| 3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
| 3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
| 3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
| 3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
| 3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
| 3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
| 3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
| 13297 | To the four causes Plato adds a fifth, the idea which guided the event [Seneca] |
| 24005 | We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie] |
| 24006 | Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie] |
| 13307 | If everything can be measured, try measuring the size of a man's soul [Seneca] |
| 23973 | Unlike moods, emotions have specific objects, though the difference is a matter of degree [Goldie] |
| 23974 | Emotional intentionality as belief and desire misses out the necessity of feelings [Goldie] |
| 23972 | A long lasting and evolving emotion is still seen as a single emotion, such as love [Goldie] |
| 23978 | 'Having an emotion' differs from 'being emotional' [Goldie] |
| 23992 | Some Aborigines have fifteen different words for types of fear [Goldie] |
| 23979 | Emotional responses can reveal to us our values, which might otherwise remain hidden [Goldie] |
| 23976 | If we have a 'feeling towards' an object, that gives the recognition a different content [Goldie] |
| 23977 | When actions are performed 'out of' emotion, they appear to be quite different [Goldie] |
| 23980 | It is best to see emotions holistically, as embedded in a person's life narrative [Goldie] |
| 23982 | If emotions are 'towards' things, they can't be bodily feelings, which lack aboutness [Goldie] |
| 23968 | If reasons are seen impersonally (as just causal), then feelings are an irrelevant extra [Goldie] |
| 23969 | We have feelings of which we are hardly aware towards things in the world [Goldie] |
| 23984 | An emotion needs episodes of feeling, but not continuously [Goldie] |
| 24001 | Moods can focus as emotions, and emotions can blur into moods [Goldie] |
| 23970 | Emotions are not avocado pears, with a rigid core and changeable surface [Goldie] |
| 23985 | A basic emotion is the foundation of a hierarchy, such as anger for types of annoyance [Goldie] |
| 23986 | Early Chinese basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking [Goldie] |
| 23991 | Cross-cultural studies of facial expressions suggests seven basic emotions [Goldie] |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |
| 21399 | Referring to a person, and speaking about him, are very different [Seneca] |
| 23995 | Akrasia can be either overruling our deliberation, or failing to deliberate [Goldie] |
| 24000 | Justifying reasons say you were right; excusing reasons say your act was explicable [Goldie] |
| 3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
| 13325 | Trouble in life comes from copying other people, which is following convention instead of reason [Seneca] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 13294 | We know death, which is like before birth; ceasing to be and never beginning are the same [Seneca] |
| 13299 | Living is nothing wonderful; what matters is to die well [Seneca] |
| 13300 | It is as silly to lament ceasing to be as to lament not having lived in the remote past [Seneca] |
| 13321 | Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca] |
| 13292 | Selfishness does not produce happiness; to live for yourself, live for others [Seneca] |
| 13303 | A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is [Seneca] |
| 13302 | Life is like a play - it is the quality that matters, not the length [Seneca] |
| 13301 | We are scared of death - except when we are immersed in pleasure! [Seneca] |
| 13323 | The whole point of pleasure-seeking is novelty, and abandoning established ways [Seneca] |
| 13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
| 13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
| 13305 | Character is ruined by not looking back over our pasts, since the future rests on the past [Seneca] |
| 24003 | Character traits are both possession of and lack of dispositions [Goldie] |
| 24002 | We over-estimate the role of character traits when explaining behaviour [Goldie] |
| 24004 | Psychologists suggest we are muddled about traits, and maybe they should be abandoned [Goldie] |
| 13308 | It's no good winning lots of fights, if you are then conquered by your own temper [Seneca] |
| 13312 | Excessive curiosity is a form of intemperance [Seneca] |
| 13315 | To govern used to mean to serve, not to rule; rulers did not test their powers over those who bestowed it [Seneca] |
| 13290 | One joy of learning is making teaching possible [Seneca] |
| 13322 | Both teachers and pupils should aim at one thing - the improvement of the pupil [Seneca] |
| 13298 | Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca] |
| 13319 | If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca] |
| 13320 | Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca] |
| 13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
| 23993 | Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period [Goldie] |