30 ideas
| 12104 | All ideas must be understood historically [Comte] |
| 12105 | Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte] |
| 12112 | Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena [Comte] |
| 12106 | Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte] |
| 7491 | The phases of human thought are theological, then metaphysical, then positivist [Comte, by Watson] |
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte] |
| 12114 | Science can drown in detail, so we need broad scientists (to keep out the metaphysicians) [Comte] |
| 12116 | Only positivist philosophy can terminate modern social crises [Comte] |
| 4986 | A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws' [Kirk,R] |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 12107 | Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte] |
| 5001 | Maybe we should see intentionality and consciousness as a single problem, not two [Kirk,R] |
| 4993 | If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R] |
| 5000 | Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R] |
| 12115 | Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte] |
| 4982 | Dualism implies some brain events with no physical cause, and others with no physical effect [Kirk,R] |
| 4991 | Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R] |
| 4994 | Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R] |
| 4992 | In 'holistic' behaviourism we say a mental state is a complex of many dispositions [Kirk,R] |
| 4990 | The inverted spectrum idea is often regarded as an objection to behaviourism [Kirk,R] |
| 4984 | All meaningful psychological statements can be translated into physics [Kirk,R] |
| 4998 | Instead of representation by sentences, it can be by a distribution of connectionist strengths [Kirk,R] |
| 4985 | If mental states are multiply realisable, they could not be translated into physical terms [Kirk,R] |
| 4997 | It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R] |
| 4999 | For behaviourists language is just a special kind of behaviour [Kirk,R] |
| 4995 | Behaviourists doubt whether reference is a single type of relation [Kirk,R] |
| 12113 | The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte] |
| 12110 | We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte] |