128 ideas
| 5196 | Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer] |
| 5189 | Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer] |
| 2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
| 7919 | Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C] |
| 2187 | If we suspect that a philosophical term is meaningless, we should ask what impression it derives from [Hume] |
| 5195 | Critics say analysis can only show the parts, and not their distinctive configuration [Ayer] |
| 2200 | All experimental conclusions assume that the future will be like the past [Hume] |
| 5179 | Philosophy deals with the questions that scientists do not wish to handle [Ayer] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 4749 | We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer] |
| 2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
| 5202 | Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer] |
| 7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
| 6523 | Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
| 13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
| 2216 | We transfer the frequency of past observations to our future predictions [Hume] |
| 2215 | There is no such thing as chance [Hume] |
| 2209 | Belief is stronger, clearer and steadier than imagination [Hume] |
| 2207 | Belief can't be a concept plus an idea, or we could add the idea to fictions [Hume] |
| 2208 | Belief is just a particular feeling attached to ideas of objects [Hume] |
| 2213 | Beliefs are built up by resemblance, contiguity and causation [Hume] |
| 3661 | 'Natural beliefs' are unavoidable, whatever our judgements [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 5183 | Only tautologies can be certain; other propositions can only be probable [Ayer] |
| 6525 | Logical positivists could never give the sense-data equivalent of 'there is a table next door' [Robinson,H on Ayer] |
| 5170 | Material things are constructions from actual and possible occurrences of sense-contents [Ayer] |
| 5198 | We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer] |
| 2619 | Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer] |
| 5197 | By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer] |
| 5204 | To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer] |
| 2191 | Relations of ideas are known by thought, independently from the world [Hume] |
| 2239 | If secondary qualities (e.g. hardness) are in the mind, so are primary qualities like extension [Hume] |
| 2237 | It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects [Hume] |
| 6524 | Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
| 5193 | Causal and representative theories of perception are wrong as they refer to unobservables [Ayer] |
| 5200 | The main claim of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge [Ayer] |
| 2192 | All reasoning about facts is causal; nothing else goes beyond memory and senses [Hume] |
| 2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [Hume] |
| 23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on Hume] |
| 4729 | Empiricism lacked a decent account of the a priori, until Ayer said it was entirely analytic [O'Grady on Ayer] |
| 5180 | All propositions (especially 'metaphysics') must begin with the senses [Ayer] |
| 5169 | My empiricism logically distinguishes analytic and synthetic propositions, and metaphysical verbiage [Ayer] |
| 2182 | Impressions are our livelier perceptions, Ideas the less lively ones [Hume] |
| 2190 | All objects of enquiry are Relations of Ideas, or Matters of Fact [Hume] |
| 2246 | If books don't relate ideas or explain facts, commit them to the flames [Hume] |
| 2189 | All ideas are connected by Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect [Hume] |
| 2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume] |
| 2702 | Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume] |
| 2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
| 2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
| 2183 | We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume] |
| 5185 | It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer] |
| 2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
| 3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on Hume] |
| 5199 | Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer] |
| 23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
| 2206 | Reasons for belief must eventually terminate in experience, or they are without foundation [Hume] |
| 2235 | There is no certain supreme principle, or infallible rule of inference [Hume] |
| 10328 | We think testimony matches reality because of experience, not some a priori connection [Hume] |
| 2230 | Good testimony needs education, integrity, motive and agreement [Hume, by PG] |
| 2238 | Reason can never show that experiences are connected to external objects [Hume] |
| 2242 | Mitigated scepticism draws attention to the limitations of human reason, and encourages modesty [Hume] |
| 2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
| 2236 | Examples of illusion only show that sense experience needs correction by reason [Hume] |
| 2240 | It is a very extravagant aim of the sceptics to destroy reason and argument by means of reason and argument [Hume] |
| 2241 | The main objection to scepticism is that no good can come of it [Hume] |
| 2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
| 5190 | The induction problem is to prove generalisations about the future based on the past [Ayer] |
| 2201 | Induction can't prove that the future will be like the past, since induction assumes this [Hume] |
| 2203 | If we infer causes from repetition, this explains why we infer from a thousand objects what we couldn't infer from one [Hume] |
| 5191 | We can't use the uniformity of nature to prove induction, as that would be circular [Ayer] |
| 2199 | Reason cannot show why reliable past experience should extend to future times and remote places [Hume] |
| 2202 | Fools, children and animals all learn from experience [Hume] |
| 2204 | All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning [Hume] |
| 6350 | Premises can support an argument without entailing it [Pollock/Cruz on Hume] |
| 3598 | Hume just shows induction isn't deduction [Williams,M on Hume] |
| 5177 | Other minds are 'metaphysical' objects, because I can never observe their experiences [Ayer] |
| 5178 | A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer] |
| 2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
| 17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
| 8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 2211 | When I am close to (contiguous with) home, I feel its presence more nearly [Hume] |
| 2212 | An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume] |
| 2214 | Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume] |
| 5172 | If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer] |
| 5173 | Two experiences belong to one self if their contents belong with one body [Ayer] |
| 5176 | Empiricists can define personal identity as bodily identity, which consists of sense-contents [Ayer] |
| 2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
| 2223 | Liberty is merely acting according to the will, which anyone can do if they are not in chains [Hume] |
| 3655 | Hume makes determinism less rigid by removing the necessity from causation [Trusted on Hume] |
| 5171 | The supposed 'gulf' between mind and matter is based on the senseless concept of 'substances' [Ayer] |
| 5181 | A sentence is factually significant to someone if they know how to verify its proposition [Ayer] |
| 5184 | Factual propositions imply (in conjunction with a few other premises) possible experiences [Ayer] |
| 5186 | Tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions [Ayer] |
| 2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
| 2224 | Praise and blame can only be given if an action proceeds from a person's character and disposition [Hume] |
| 2225 | If you deny all necessity and causation, then our character is not responsible for our crime [Hume] |
| 2226 | Repentance gets rid of guilt, which shows that responsibility arose from the criminal principles in the mind [Hume] |
| 5205 | Moral intuition is worthless if there is no criterion to decide between intuitions [Ayer] |
| 23725 | Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M] |
| 5206 | To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer] |
| 21995 | Must production determine superstructure, or could it be the other way round? [Singer on Marx] |
| 20577 | Even decently paid workers still have their produce bought with money stolen from them [Marx] |
| 2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
| 2195 | We can discover some laws of nature, but never its ultimate principles and causes [Hume] |
| 2245 | A priori it looks as if a cause could have absolutely any effect [Hume] |
| 4772 | If a singular effect is studied, its cause can only be inferred from the types of events involved [Hume] |
| 8341 | Hume never even suggests that there is no such thing as causation [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 8344 | At first Hume said qualities are the causal entities, but later he said events [Hume, by Davidson] |
| 3662 | Hume says we can only know constant conjunctions, not that that's what causation IS [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 4771 | In both of Hume's definitions, causation is extrinsic to the sequence of events [Psillos on Hume] |
| 5194 | Hume's definition of cause as constantly joined thoughts can't cover undiscovered laws [Ayer on Hume] |
| 2221 | A cause is either similar events following one another, or an experience always suggesting a second experience [Hume] |
| 2234 | It is only when two species of thing are constantly conjoined that we can infer one from the other [Hume] |
| 2193 | No causes can be known a priori, but only from experience of constant conjunctions [Hume] |
| 8422 | Cause is where if the first object had not been, the second had not existed [Hume] |
| 2218 | In observing causes we can never observe any necessary connections or binding qualities [Hume] |
| 15249 | Hume never shows how a strong habit could generate the concept of necessity [Harré/Madden on Hume] |
| 8339 | Hume's regularity theory of causation is epistemological; he believed in some sort of natural necessity [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 5208 | A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer] |
| 5187 | When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer] |
| 2244 | It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume] |
| 2232 | You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume] |
| 2228 | All experience must be against a supposed miracle, or it wouldn't be called 'a miracle' [Hume] |
| 2229 | To establish a miracle the falseness of the evidence must be a greater miracle than the claimed miraculous event [Hume] |
| 2227 | A miracle violates laws which have been established by continuous unchanging experience, so should be ignored [Hume] |
| 2185 | The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume] |
| 5207 | If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer] |
| 5209 | The 'truths' expressed by theists are not literally significant [Ayer] |