19 ideas
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
| 20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
| 20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
| 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] |
| 13856 | Conditionals are truth-functional, but we must take care with misleading ones [Grice, by Edgington] |
| 8948 | The odd truth table for material conditionals is explained by conversational conventions [Grice, by Fisher] |
| 13767 | Conditionals might remain truth-functional, despite inappropriate conversational remarks [Edgington on Grice] |
| 14277 | A person can be justified in believing a proposition, though it is unreasonable to actually say it [Grice, by Edgington] |
| 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] |
| 20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |