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All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Nine political essays' and 'works'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Philosophy is not separate from or above empirical science [Neurath]
     Full Idea: There is no such thing as philosophy as a basic or universal science alongside or above the various fields of the one empirical science.
     From: Otto Neurath (works [1930]), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.6
     A reaction: This is what you get for becoming an empiricist. If philosophy is the quest for human wisdom, it seems to me highly unlikely that physical sciences will provide it. Human interests and values and understanding play absolutely no role in physics.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 4. Property rights
Hume thought (unlike Locke) that property is a merely conventional relationship [Hume, by Fogelin]
     Full Idea: Hume thought (in contrast to Locke) that property reflects a conventional (rather than natural) relationship determined by the laws that protect people from having things taken from them.
     From: report of David Hume (Nine political essays [1741]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3
     A reaction: It seems pretty obvious that the idea of property was invented by the powerful, to protect their gains against the weak. I suspect that you might till a piece of land simply in order to assert ownership of it, just as you might bring in colonists.