99 ideas
| 19073 | True philosophy aims at absolute unity, while our understanding sees only separation [Hegel] |
| 15624 | Free thinking has no presuppositions [Hegel] |
| 15631 | The ideal of reason is the unification of abstract identity (or 'concept') and being [Hegel] |
| 12667 | Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis] |
| 15612 | Older metaphysics naively assumed that thought grasped things in themselves [Hegel] |
| 21768 | Logic is metaphysics, the science of things grasped in thoughts [Hegel] |
| 21984 | We must break up the rigidity that our understanding has imposed [Hegel] |
| 22081 | Let thought follow its own course, and don't interfere [Hegel] |
| 15626 | Categories create objective experience, but are too conditioned by things to actually grasp them [Hegel] |
| 15616 | If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory [Hegel] |
| 15638 | Dialectic is the moving soul of scientific progression, the principle which binds science together [Hegel] |
| 21767 | Dialectic is seen in popular proverbs like 'pride comes before a fall' [Hegel] |
| 15639 | Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective [Hegel] |
| 15615 | Older metaphysics became dogmatic, by assuming opposed assertions must be true and false [Hegel] |
| 19070 | Superficial truth is knowing how something is, which is consciousness of bare correctness [Hegel] |
| 5644 | In Hegel's logic it is concepts (rather than judgements or propositions) which are true or false [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 19072 | In the deeper sense of truth, to be untrue resembles being bad; badness is untrue to a thing's nature [Hegel] |
| 19071 | The deeper sense of truth is a thing matching the idea of what it ought to be [Hegel] |
| 12666 | We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis] |
| 21595 | Excluded middle is the maxim of definite understanding, but just produces contradictions [Hegel] |
| 15628 | The idea that contradiction is essential to rational understanding is a key modern idea [Hegel] |
| 15629 | Tenderness for the world solves the antinomies; contradiction is in our reason, not in the essence of the world [Hegel] |
| 15630 | Antinomies are not just in four objects, but in all objects, all representations, all objects and all ideas [Hegel] |
| 12688 | Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis] |
| 12683 | Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12670 | A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis] |
| 22078 | Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel] |
| 15634 | Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel] |
| 12673 | Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis] |
| 12665 | I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis] |
| 12682 | Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis] |
| 12684 | Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis] |
| 12672 | Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis] |
| 12676 | Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis] |
| 23781 | Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE] |
| 12686 | Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis] |
| 21981 | The one substance is formless without the mediation of dialectical concepts [Hegel] |
| 12685 | Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis] |
| 12679 | A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis] |
| 15637 | Essence is the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation [Hegel] |
| 15613 | Real cognition grasps a thing from within itself, and is not satisfied with mere predicates [Hegel] |
| 12668 | Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis] |
| 12687 | Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis] |
| 15636 | The Cogito is at the very centre of the entire concern of modern philosophy [Hegel] |
| 22300 | Existence is just a set of relationships [Hegel] |
| 15609 | The sensible is distinguished from thought by being about singular things [Hegel] |
| 15625 | Sense perception is secondary and dependent, while thought is independent and primitive [Hegel] |
| 15619 | Empiricism made particular knowledge possible, and blocked wild claims [Hegel] |
| 15620 | Empiricism contains the important idea that we should see knowledge for ourselves, and be part of it [Hegel] |
| 15622 | Empiricism unknowingly contains and uses a metaphysic, which underlies its categories [Hegel] |
| 15621 | Empiricism of the finite denies the supersensible, and can only think with formal abstraction [Hegel] |
| 15632 | The Humean view stops us thinking about perception, and finding universals and necessities in it [Hegel] |
| 15623 | Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic [Hegel] |
| 17405 | If a theory can be fudged, so can observations [Scerri] |
| 12669 | Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis] |
| 17397 | The periodic system is the big counterexample to Kuhn's theory of revolutionary science [Scerri] |
| 17393 | Scientists eventually seek underlying explanations for every pattern [Scerri] |
| 17403 | The periodic table suggests accommodation to facts rates above prediction [Scerri] |
| 15617 | In abstraction, beyond finitude, freedom and necessity must exist together [Hegel] |
| 15608 | The act of thinking is the bringing forth of universals [Hegel] |
| 21986 | Hegel's system has a vast number of basic concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| 15607 | We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts [Hegel] |
| 15610 | Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it [Hegel] |
| 17421 | If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri] |
| 17394 | Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri] |
| 12681 | There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| 12680 | Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis] |
| 15614 | Old metaphysics tried to grasp eternal truths through causal events, which is impossible [Hegel] |
| 12675 | Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis] |
| 17396 | The colour of gold is best explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 12671 | I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis] |
| 12674 | Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis] |
| 17420 | The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy [Scerri] |
| 17411 | If all elements are multiples of one (of hydrogen), that suggests once again that matter is unified [Scerri] |
| 12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 12690 | The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
| 17392 | How can poisonous elements survive in the nutritious compound they compose? [Scerri] |
| 17391 | Periodicity and bonding are the two big ideas in chemistry [Scerri] |
| 17404 | Chemistry does not work from general principles, but by careful induction from large amounts of data [Scerri] |
| 17407 | The electron is the main source of chemical properties [Scerri] |
| 17409 | Does radioactivity show that only physics can explain chemistry? [Scerri] |
| 17415 | A big chemistry idea is that covalent bonds are shared electrons, not transfer of electrons [Scerri] |
| 17418 | It is now thought that all the elements have literally evolved from hydrogen [Scerri] |
| 17398 | 19th C views said elements survived abstractly in compounds, but also as 'material ingredients' [Scerri] |
| 17395 | Elements were ordered by equivalent weight; later by atomic weight; finally by atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17410 | Moseley showed the elements progress in units, and thereby clearly identified the gaps [Scerri] |
| 17412 | Elements are placed in the table by the number of positive charges - the atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17422 | The best classification needs the deepest and most general principles of the atoms [Scerri] |
| 17406 | Moseley, using X-rays, showed that atomic number ordered better than atomic weight [Scerri] |
| 17408 | Some suggested basing the new periodic table on isotopes, not elements [Scerri] |
| 17413 | Elements in the table are grouped by having the same number of outer-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17416 | Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics [Scerri] |
| 17417 | To explain the table, quantum mechanics still needs to explain order of shell filling [Scerri] |
| 17419 | Since 99.96% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, the periodic table hardly matters [Scerri] |
| 17414 | Pauli explained the electron shells, but not the lengths of the periods in the table [Scerri] |
| 15618 | If God is the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God is a mere Beyond, and unknowable [Hegel] |
| 15635 | The older conception of God was emptied of human features, to make it worthy of the Infinite [Hegel] |
| 21980 | God is the absolute thing, and also the absolute person [Hegel] |
| 15633 | We establish unification of the Ideal by the ontological proof, deriving being from abstraction of thinking [Hegel] |