62 ideas
| 162 | Can we understand an individual soul without knowing the soul in general? [Plato] |
| 160 | The highest ability in man is the ability to discuss unity and plurality in the nature of things [Plato] |
| 20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
| 7953 | Reasoning needs to cut nature accurately at the joints [Plato] |
| 16121 | I revere anyone who can discern a single thing that encompasses many things [Plato] |
| 153 | It takes a person to understand, by using universals, and by using reason to create a unity out of sense-impressions [Plato] |
| 154 | We would have an overpowering love of knowledge if we had a pure idea of it - as with the other Forms [Plato] |
| 151 | True knowledge is of the reality behind sense experience [Plato] |
| 165 | If the apparent facts strongly conflict with probability, it is in everyone's interests to suppress the facts [Plato] |
| 20043 | Evolutionary explanations look to the past or the group, not to the individual [Stout,R] |
| 20058 | Not all explanation is causal. We don't explain a painting's beauty, or the irrationality of root-2, that way [Stout,R] |
| 9296 | The soul is self-motion [Plato] |
| 6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
| 20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| 158 | An excellent speech seems to imply a knowledge of the truth in the mind of the speaker [Plato] |
| 159 | Only a good philosopher can be a good speaker [Plato] |
| 5946 | 'Phaedrus' pioneers the notion of philosophical rhetoric [Lawson-Tancred on Plato] |
| 20035 | Philosophy of action studies the nature of agency, and of deliberate actions [Stout,R] |
| 20084 | Agency is causal processes that are sensitive to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20061 | Mental states and actions need to be separate, if one is to cause the other [Stout,R] |
| 20079 | Are actions bodily movements, or a sequence of intention-movement-result? [Stout,R] |
| 20080 | If one action leads to another, does it cause it, or is it part of it? [Stout,R] |
| 20059 | I do actions, but not events, so actions are not events [Stout,R] |
| 20081 | Bicycle riding is not just bodily movement - you also have to be on the bicycle [Stout,R] |
| 20044 | The rationalistic approach says actions are intentional when subject to justification [Stout,R] |
| 20039 | The causal theory says that actions are intentional when intention (or belief-desire) causes the act [Stout,R] |
| 20047 | Deciding what to do usually involves consulting the world, not our own minds [Stout,R] |
| 20065 | Should we study intentions in their own right, or only as part of intentional action? [Stout,R] |
| 20067 | You can have incompatible desires, but your intentions really ought to be consistent [Stout,R] |
| 20078 | The normativity of intentions would be obvious if they were internal promises [Stout,R] |
| 20036 | Intentional agency is seen in internal precursors of action, and in external reasons for the act [Stout,R] |
| 20066 | Speech needs sustained intentions, but not prior intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20073 | Bratman has to treat shared intentions as interrelated individual intentions [Stout,R] |
| 20069 | A request to pass the salt shares an intention that the request be passed on [Stout,R] |
| 20070 | An individual cannot express the intention that a group do something like moving a piano [Stout,R] |
| 20071 | An intention is a goal to which behaviour is adapted, for an individual or for a group [Stout,R] |
| 20038 | If the action of walking is just an act of will, then movement of the legs seems irrelevant [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20077 | If you can judge one act as best, then do another, this supports an inward-looking view of agency [Stout,R] |
| 20046 | For an ascetic a powerful desire for something is a reason not to implement it [Stout,R] |
| 20049 | Maybe your emotions arise from you motivations, rather than being their cause [Stout,R] |
| 20060 | Beliefs, desires and intentions are not events, so can't figure in causal relations [Stout,R] |
| 20055 | A standard view says that the explanation of an action is showing its rational justification [Stout,R] |
| 20056 | In order to be causal, an agent's reasons must be internalised as psychological states [Stout,R] |
| 20053 | An action is only yours if you produce it, rather than some state or event within you [Stout,R] |
| 20048 | There may be a justification relative to a person's view, and yet no absolute justification [Stout,R] |
| 20068 | Describing a death as a side-effect rather than a goal may just be good public relations [Stout,R] |
| 155 | Beauty is the clearest and most lovely of the Forms [Plato] |
| 143 | The two ruling human principles are the natural desire for pleasure, and an acquired love of virtue [Plato] |
| 157 | Most pleasure is release from pain, and is therefore not worthwhile [Plato] |
| 144 | Reason impels us towards excellence, which teaches us self-control [Plato] |
| 156 | Bad people are never really friends with one another [Plato] |
| 20083 | Aristotelian causation involves potentiality inputs into processes (rather than a pair of events) [Stout,R] |
| 148 | If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato] |
| 152 | The mind of God is fully satisfied and happy with a vision of reality and truth [Plato] |
| 5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |
| 150 | We cannot conceive of God, so we have to think of Him as an immortal version of ourselves [Plato] |
| 149 | There isn't a single reason for positing the existence of immortal beings [Plato] |
| 146 | Soul is always in motion, so it must be self-moving and immortal [Plato] |