23 ideas
| 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] |
| 13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
| 9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
| 13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
| 13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
| 9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
| 9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
| 9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |
| 9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
| 9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
| 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] |
| 4581 | Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume] |
| 4580 | All virtues benefit either the public, or the individual who possesses them [Hume] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 4579 | The idea of a final cause is very uncertain and unphilosophical [Hume] |
| 20705 | That events could be uncaused is absurd; I only say intuition and demonstration don't show this [Hume] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |