117 ideas
| 2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
| 13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
| 2187 | If we suspect that a philosophical term is meaningless, we should ask what impression it derives from [Hume] |
| 2200 | All experimental conclusions assume that the future will be like the past [Hume] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
| 13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
| 8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
| 7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
| 8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
| 13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| 13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
| 13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
| 13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
| 2216 | We transfer the frequency of past observations to our future predictions [Hume] |
| 2215 | There is no such thing as chance [Hume] |
| 23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
| 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] |
| 3661 | 'Natural beliefs' are unavoidable, whatever our judgements [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 2213 | Beliefs are built up by resemblance, contiguity and causation [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
| 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] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
| 23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
| 3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on 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] |
| 13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
| 2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 2204 | All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
| 5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
| 2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
| 5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
| 5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
| 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] |
| 2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
| 5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
| 2224 | Praise and blame can only be given if an action proceeds from a person's character and disposition [Hume] |
| 5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
| 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] |
| 5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
| 5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
| 5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
| 5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
| 5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
| 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] |
| 16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| 2244 | It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume] |
| 5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
| 5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
| 2232 | You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume] |
| 2227 | A miracle violates laws which have been established by continuous unchanging experience, so should be ignored [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] |
| 2185 | The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume] |
| 5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
| 5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
| 5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |