45 ideas
3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
16744 | All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes] |
5016 | Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes] |
5015 | A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes] |
16630 | If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes] |
5013 | A substance needs nothing else in order to exist [Descartes] |
16633 | A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes] |
2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
3658 | Total doubt can't include your existence while doubting [Descartes] |
5005 | I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes] |
5006 | 'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes] |
5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
5010 | Our free will is so self-evident to us that it must be a basic innate idea [Descartes] |
5011 | There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes] |
2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
5018 | Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes] |
2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
5009 | We do not praise the acts of an efficient automaton, as their acts are necessary [Descartes] |
5008 | The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes] |
15987 | Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes] |
12730 | We will not try to understand natural or divine ends, or final causes [Descartes] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
16601 | Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes] |
2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |