50 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] |
| 2930 | The main aim of philosophy must be to determine the order of rank among values [Nietzsche] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 20143 | Scientific knowledge is nothing without a prior philosophical 'faith' [Nietzsche] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 23722 | Objectivity is not disinterestedness (impossible), but the ability to switch perspectives [Nietzsche] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 4417 | Only that which has no history is definable [Nietzsche] |
| 23715 | Psychologists should be brave and proud, and prefer truth to desires, even when it is ugly [Nietzsche] |
| 12154 | Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 8969 | We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne] |
| 16075 | Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach] |
| 12152 | Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach] |
| 16073 | Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman] |
| 4421 | Philosophers have never asked why there is a will to truth in the first place [Nietzsche] |
| 23719 | Forgetfulness is a strong positive ability, not mental laziness [Nietzsche] |
| 4420 | There is only 'perspective' seeing and knowing, and so the best objectivity is multiple points of view [Nietzsche] |
| 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] |
| 4414 | Philosophers invented "free will" so that our virtues would be permanently interesting to the gods [Nietzsche] |
| 4419 | People who think in words are orators rather than thinkers, and think about facts instead of thinking facts [Nietzsche] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 4411 | It is a delusion to separate the man from the deed, like the flash from the lightning [Nietzsche] |
| 3793 | We must question the very value of moral values [Nietzsche] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 4408 | The concept of 'good' was created by aristocrats to describe their own actions [Nietzsche] |
| 23716 | A strong rounded person soon forgets enemies, misfortunes, and even misdeeds [Nietzsche] |
| 20129 | All animals strive for the ideal conditions to express their power, and hate any hindrances [Nietzsche] |
| 4409 | Only the decline of aristocratic morality led to concerns about "egoism" [Nietzsche] |
| 3259 | Nietzsche rejects impersonal morality, and asserts the idea of living well [Nietzsche, by Nagel] |
| 4416 | Basic justice is the negotiation of agreement among equals, and the imposition of agreement [Nietzsche] |
| 4418 | A masterful and violent person need have nothing to do with contracts [Nietzsche] |
| 4407 | Plato, Spinoza and Kant are very different, but united in their low estimation of pity [Nietzsche] |
| 4415 | Guilt and obligation originated in the relationship of buying and selling, credit and debt [Nietzsche] |
| 23718 | If we say birds of prey could become lambs, that makes them responsible for being birds of prey [Nietzsche] |
| 23717 | Modern nihilism is now feeling tired of mankind [Nietzsche] |
| 23721 | Old tribes always felt an obligation to the earlier generations, and the founders [Nietzsche] |
| 20142 | The state begins with brutal conquest of a disorganised people, not with a 'contract' [Nietzsche] |
| 23720 | Punishment makes people harder, more alienated, and hostile [Nietzsche] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |
| 4410 | The truly great haters in world history have always been priests [Nietzsche] |