16 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 5655 | Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |