68 ideas
| 326 | For relaxation one can consider the world of change, instead of eternal things [Plato] |
| 315 | Philosophy is the supreme gift of the gods to mortals [Plato] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 306 | Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato] |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 12042 | Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas] |
| 307 | Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato] |
| 318 | In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato] |
| 321 | For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato] |
| 317 | The universe is basically an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it [Plato] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 334 | Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
| 330 | No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 332 | One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance [Plato] |
| 328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
| 3031 | The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 322 | Intelligence is the result of rational teaching; true opinion can result from irrational persuasion [Plato] |
| 331 | Bad governments prevent discussion, and discourage the study of virtue [Plato] |
| 310 | The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato] |
| 311 | The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato] |
| 325 | We must consider the four basic shapes as too small to see, only becoming visible in large numbers [Plato] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 327 | There are two types of cause, the necessary and the divine [Plato] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 314 | Heavenly movements gave us the idea of time, and caused us to inquire about the heavens [Plato] |
| 312 | Time came into existence with the heavens, so that there will be a time when they can be dissolved [Plato] |
| 309 | Clearly the world is good, so its maker must have been concerned with the eternal, not with change [Plato] |
| 308 | If the cosmos is an object of perception then it must be continually changing [Plato] |