30 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
6602 | Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon] |
12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
16639 | Only individual bodies exist [Bacon] |
16625 | In hylomorphism all the explanation of actions is in the form, and the matter doesn't do anything [Bacon] |
16033 | There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon] |
16065 | Constitution is identity (being in the same place), or it isn't (having different possibilities) [Wasserman] |
16067 | Constitution is not identity, because it is an asymmetric dependence relation [Wasserman] |
16069 | There are three main objections to seeing constitution as different from identity [Wasserman] |
16068 | The weight of a wall is not the weight of its parts, since that would involve double-counting [Wasserman] |
16074 | Relative identity may reject transitivity, but that suggests that it isn't about 'identity' [Wasserman] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
16724 | The senses deceive, but also show their own errors [Bacon] |
12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
3648 | Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon] |
12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
6603 | Nature is revealed when we put it under pressure rather than observe it [Bacon] |
21950 | Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon] |
12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
16624 | Stripped and passive matter is just a human invention [Bacon] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
7399 | Even without religion, there are many guides to morality [Bacon] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |