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3 ideas
| 4391 | Opinion is praised for being in accordance with truth [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Opinion is praised for being in accordance with truth. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112a07) | |
| A reaction: This presumably makes Aristotle a realist, and it seems to me that the concepts of 'opinion' or 'belief' are incomprehensible without the concept of truth. |
| 9636 | My theory aims at the certitude of mathematical methods [Hilbert] |
| Full Idea: The goal of my theory is to establish once and for all the certitude of mathematical methods. | |
| From: David Hilbert (On the Infinite [1925], p.184), quoted by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This dream is famous for being shattered by Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem a mere six years later. Neverless there seem to be more limited certainties which are accepted in mathematics. The certainty of the whole of arithmetic is beyond us. |
| 2573 | To perceive or think is to be conscious of our existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our existence (for we have seen that existence is sensation or thought). | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1170a32) | |
| A reaction: A lovely glimpse of Descartes' Cogito, which was made more explicit by Augustine. Is an animal (which presumably perceives) conscious of its existence? |