126 ideas
| 2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
| 2187 | If we suspect that a philosophical term is meaningless, we should ask what impression it derives from [Hume] |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| 2200 | All experimental conclusions assume that the future will be like the past [Hume] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
| 7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| 13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| 2216 | We transfer the frequency of past observations to our future predictions [Hume] |
| 2215 | There is no such thing as chance [Hume] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| 2209 | Belief is stronger, clearer and steadier than imagination [Hume] |
| 2207 | Belief can't be a concept plus an idea, or we could add the idea to fictions [Hume] |
| 2208 | Belief is just a particular feeling attached to ideas of objects [Hume] |
| 2213 | Beliefs are built up by resemblance, contiguity and causation [Hume] |
| 3661 | 'Natural beliefs' are unavoidable, whatever our judgements [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 2191 | Relations of ideas are known by thought, independently from the world [Hume] |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| 2239 | If secondary qualities (e.g. hardness) are in the mind, so are primary qualities like extension [Hume] |
| 2237 | It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects [Hume] |
| 2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [Hume] |
| 23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on Hume] |
| 2192 | All reasoning about facts is causal; nothing else goes beyond memory and senses [Hume] |
| 2182 | Impressions are our livelier perceptions, Ideas the less lively ones [Hume] |
| 2190 | All objects of enquiry are Relations of Ideas, or Matters of Fact [Hume] |
| 2246 | If books don't relate ideas or explain facts, commit them to the flames [Hume] |
| 2189 | All ideas are connected by Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect [Hume] |
| 2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume] |
| 2702 | Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume] |
| 2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
| 2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
| 2183 | We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume] |
| 2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
| 3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on Hume] |
| 23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
| 2206 | Reasons for belief must eventually terminate in experience, or they are without foundation [Hume] |
| 2235 | There is no certain supreme principle, or infallible rule of inference [Hume] |
| 10328 | We think testimony matches reality because of experience, not some a priori connection [Hume] |
| 2230 | Good testimony needs education, integrity, motive and agreement [Hume, by PG] |
| 2238 | Reason can never show that experiences are connected to external objects [Hume] |
| 2242 | Mitigated scepticism draws attention to the limitations of human reason, and encourages modesty [Hume] |
| 2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
| 2236 | Examples of illusion only show that sense experience needs correction by reason [Hume] |
| 2240 | It is a very extravagant aim of the sceptics to destroy reason and argument by means of reason and argument [Hume] |
| 2241 | The main objection to scepticism is that no good can come of it [Hume] |
| 2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
| 2201 | Induction can't prove that the future will be like the past, since induction assumes this [Hume] |
| 2203 | If we infer causes from repetition, this explains why we infer from a thousand objects what we couldn't infer from one [Hume] |
| 2204 | All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning [Hume] |
| 2199 | Reason cannot show why reliable past experience should extend to future times and remote places [Hume] |
| 2202 | Fools, children and animals all learn from experience [Hume] |
| 6350 | Premises can support an argument without entailing it [Pollock/Cruz on Hume] |
| 3598 | Hume just shows induction isn't deduction [Williams,M on Hume] |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| 2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
| 17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
| 8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 2211 | When I am close to (contiguous with) home, I feel its presence more nearly [Hume] |
| 2212 | An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume] |
| 2214 | Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume] |
| 2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
| 2223 | Liberty is merely acting according to the will, which anyone can do if they are not in chains [Hume] |
| 3655 | Hume makes determinism less rigid by removing the necessity from causation [Trusted on Hume] |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| 2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| 2224 | Praise and blame can only be given if an action proceeds from a person's character and disposition [Hume] |
| 2225 | If you deny all necessity and causation, then our character is not responsible for our crime [Hume] |
| 2226 | Repentance gets rid of guilt, which shows that responsibility arose from the criminal principles in the mind [Hume] |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| 2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
| 2195 | We can discover some laws of nature, but never its ultimate principles and causes [Hume] |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| 2245 | A priori it looks as if a cause could have absolutely any effect [Hume] |
| 4772 | If a singular effect is studied, its cause can only be inferred from the types of events involved [Hume] |
| 8341 | Hume never even suggests that there is no such thing as causation [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 8344 | At first Hume said qualities are the causal entities, but later he said events [Hume, by Davidson] |
| 3662 | Hume says we can only know constant conjunctions, not that that's what causation IS [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 4771 | In both of Hume's definitions, causation is extrinsic to the sequence of events [Psillos on Hume] |
| 5194 | Hume's definition of cause as constantly joined thoughts can't cover undiscovered laws [Ayer on Hume] |
| 2221 | A cause is either similar events following one another, or an experience always suggesting a second experience [Hume] |
| 2234 | It is only when two species of thing are constantly conjoined that we can infer one from the other [Hume] |
| 2193 | No causes can be known a priori, but only from experience of constant conjunctions [Hume] |
| 8422 | Cause is where if the first object had not been, the second had not existed [Hume] |
| 2218 | In observing causes we can never observe any necessary connections or binding qualities [Hume] |
| 15249 | Hume never shows how a strong habit could generate the concept of necessity [Harré/Madden on Hume] |
| 8339 | Hume's regularity theory of causation is epistemological; he believed in some sort of natural necessity [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| 2244 | It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume] |
| 2232 | You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume] |
| 2228 | All experience must be against a supposed miracle, or it wouldn't be called 'a miracle' [Hume] |
| 2229 | To establish a miracle the falseness of the evidence must be a greater miracle than the claimed miraculous event [Hume] |
| 2227 | A miracle violates laws which have been established by continuous unchanging experience, so should be ignored [Hume] |
| 2185 | The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume] |