30 ideas
| 24032 | Clever scholars can obscure things which are obvious even to peasants [Descartes] |
| 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] |
| 24033 | Most scholastic disputes concern words, where agreeing on meanings would settle them [Descartes] |
| 24024 | The secret of the method is to recognise which thing in a series is the simplest [Descartes] |
| 24018 | One truth leads us to another [Descartes] |
| 24035 | Unity is something shared by many things, so in that respect they are equals [Descartes] |
| 24036 | I can only see the proportion of two to three if there is a common measure - their unity [Descartes] |
| 3663 | How can you contemplate Platonic entities without causal transactions with them? [Putnam] |
| 24029 | Among the simples are the graspable negations, such as rest and instants [Descartes] |
| 24030 | 3+4=7 is necessary because we cannot conceive of seven without including three and four [Descartes] |
| 24019 | If we accept mere probabilities as true we undermine our existing knowledge [Descartes] |
| 24020 | We all see intuitively that we exist, where intuition is attentive, clear and distinct rational understanding [Descartes] |
| 24031 | When Socrates doubts, he know he doubts, and that truth is possible [Descartes] |
| 24025 | Clear and distinct truths must be known all at once (unlike deductions) [Descartes] |
| 24022 | Our souls possess divine seeds of knowledge, which can bear spontaneous fruit [Descartes] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 24034 | If someone had only seen the basic colours, they could deduce the others from resemblance [Descartes] |
| 24021 | The method starts with clear intuitions, followed by a process of deduction [Descartes] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 24027 | Nerves and movement originate in the brain, where imagination moves them [Descartes] |
| 24026 | Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 24028 | The force by which we know things is spiritual, and quite distinct from the body [Descartes] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 24023 | All the sciences searching for order and measure are related to mathematics [Descartes] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |