33 ideas
| 22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
| 22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 12442 | 'Mickey Mouse is a fictional mouse' is true without a truthmaker [Azzouni] |
| 12439 | Truth is dispensable, by replacing truth claims with the sentence itself [Azzouni] |
| 12437 | Truth lets us assent to sentences we can't explicitly exhibit [Azzouni] |
| 12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
| 12447 | That all existents have causal powers is unknowable; the claim is simply an epistemic one [Azzouni] |
| 12445 | If fictional objects really don't exist, then they aren't abstract objects [Azzouni] |
| 12449 | Modern metaphysics often derives ontology from the logical forms of sentences [Azzouni] |
| 12440 | If objectual quantifiers ontologically commit, so does the metalanguage for its semantics [Azzouni] |
| 12438 | In the vernacular there is no unequivocal ontological commitment [Azzouni] |
| 12441 | We only get ontology from semantics if we have already smuggled it in [Azzouni] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 12448 | Things that don't exist don't have any properties [Azzouni] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
| 22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
| 22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| 22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
| 22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 21093 | Friendship without community spirit misses out on the main part of virtue [Hume] |
| 21091 | It would be absurd if even a free constitution did not impose restraints, for the public good [Hume] |
| 21092 | Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 12450 | The periodic table not only defines the elements, but also excludes other possible elements [Azzouni] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |