47 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] |
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [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] |
| 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] |
| 15682 | Even fairly simple animals make judgements based on categories [Gelman] |
| 15691 | Children accept real stable categories, with nonobvious potential that gives causal explanations [Gelman] |
| 15700 | In India, upper-castes essentialize caste more than lower-castes do [Gelman] |
| 15685 | Essentialism is either natural to us, or an accident of our culture, or a necessary result of language [Gelman] |
| 15684 | Children's concepts include nonobvious features, like internal parts, functions and causes [Gelman] |
| 15681 | Essentialism: real or representational? sortal, causal or ideal? real particulars, or placeholders? [Gelman] |
| 15678 | Essentialism says categories have a true hidden nature which gives an object its identity [Gelman] |
| 15683 | Sortals are needed for determining essence - the thing must be categorised first [Gelman] |
| 15697 | Kind (unlike individual) essentialism assumes preexisting natural categories [Gelman] |
| 15687 | Kinship is essence that comes in degrees, and age groups are essences that change over time [Gelman] |
| 15679 | Essentialism comes from the cognitive need to categorise [Gelman] |
| 15698 | We found no evidence that mothers teach essentialism to their children [Gelman] |
| 15709 | Essentialism is useful for predictions, but it is not the actual structure of reality [Gelman] |
| 15696 | Peope favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is [Gelman] |
| 15707 | There is intentional, mechanical, teleological, essentialist, vitalist and deontological understanding [Gelman] |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| 15703 | Memories often conform to a theory, rather than being neutral [Gelman] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 15708 | Inductive success is rewarded with more induction [Gelman] |
| 15694 | Children overestimate the power of a single example [Gelman] |
| 15695 | Children make errors in induction by focusing too much on categories [Gelman] |
| 15692 | People tend to be satisfied with shallow explanations [Gelman] |
| 12107 | Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte] |
| 12115 | Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte] |
| 15680 | Folk essentialism rests on belief in natural kinds, in hidden properties, and on words indicating structures [Gelman] |
| 15686 | Labels may indicate categories which embody an essence [Gelman] |
| 15690 | Causal properties are seen as more central to category concepts [Gelman] |
| 15688 | Categories are characterized by distance from a prototype [Gelman] |
| 15689 | Theory-based concepts use rich models to show which similarities really matter [Gelman] |
| 15699 | Prelinguistic infants acquire and use many categories [Gelman] |
| 19941 | Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself [Anon (Leviticus)] |
| 15693 | One sample of gold is enough, but one tree doesn't give the height of trees [Gelman] |
| 15701 | Nouns seem to invoke stable kinds more than predicates do [Gelman] |
| 12113 | The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte] |
| 15702 | Essentialism doesn't mean we know the essences [Gelman] |
| 15705 | Essentialism encourages us to think about the world scientifically [Gelman] |
| 15704 | Essentialism starts from richly structured categories, leading to a search for underlying properties [Gelman] |
| 12110 | We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte] |
| 15706 | A major objection to real essences is the essentialising of social categories like race, caste and occupation [Gelman] |