108 ideas
| 19608 | Wisdom is just the last gasp of a dying civilization [Cioran] |
| 19631 | The history of ideas (and deeds) occurs in a meaningless environment [Cioran] |
| 19624 | Intelligence only fully flourishes at the end of a historical period [Cioran] |
| 19599 | Ideas are neutral, but people fill them with passion and weakness [Cioran] |
| 19629 | A nation gives expression to its sum of values, and is then exhausted [Cioran] |
| 19645 | Some thinkers would have been just as dynamic, no matter when they had lived [Cioran] |
| 19618 | I abandoned philosophy because it didn't acknowledge melancholy and human weakness [Cioran] |
| 19621 | Originality in philosophy is just the invention of terms [Cioran] |
| 19607 | The mind is superficial, only concerned with the arrangement of events, not their significance [Cioran] |
| 19638 | Metaphysics is a universalisation of physical anguish [Cioran] |
| 19620 | Great systems of philosophy are just brilliant tautologies [Cioran] |
| 3807 | Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions [Hume] |
| 19630 | No great idea ever emerged from a dialogue [Cioran] |
| 19636 | Truth is just an error insufficiently experienced [Cioran] |
| 19642 | Eventually every 'truth' is guaranteed by the police [Cioran] |
| 19632 | An axiom has no more authority than a frenzy [Cioran] |
| 8649 | Two numbers are equal if all of their units correspond to one another [Hume] |
| 21291 | There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume] |
| 11942 | Power is the possibility of action, as discovered by experience [Hume] |
| 11949 | There may well be powers in things, with which we are quite unacquainted [Hume] |
| 11950 | We have no idea of powers, because we have no impressions of them [Hume] |
| 11941 | The distinction between a power and its exercise is entirely frivolous [Hume] |
| 11098 | Momentary impressions are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance [Hume, by Quine] |
| 7954 | If we see a resemblance among objects, we apply the same name to them, despite their differences [Hume] |
| 21293 | Individuation is only seeing that a thing is stable and continuous over time [Hume] |
| 12048 | The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume] |
| 13424 | Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume] |
| 13191 | The properties of a thing flow from its essence [Leibniz] |
| 21299 | Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume] |
| 21300 | A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume] |
| 1321 | If identity survives change or interruption, then resemblance, contiguity or causation must unite the parts of it [Hume] |
| 1330 | If a republic can retain identity through many changes, so can an individual [Hume] |
| 21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
| 21303 | We accept the identity of a river through change, because it is the river's nature [Hume] |
| 21301 | The purpose of the ship makes it the same one through all variations [Hume] |
| 1207 | Both number and unity are incompatible with the relation of identity [Hume] |
| 21290 | Multiple objects cannot convey identity, because we see them as different [Hume] |
| 21289 | 'An object is the same with itself' is meaningless; it expresses unity, not identity [Hume] |
| 21292 | Saying an object is the same with itself is only meaningful over a period of time [Hume] |
| 9428 | Nothing we clearly imagine is absolutely impossible [Hume] |
| 4766 | Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects [Hume] |
| 6526 | Hume says objects are not a construction, but an imaginative leap [Hume, by Robinson,H] |
| 6489 | Associationism results from having to explain intentionality just with sense-data [Robinson,H on Hume] |
| 6182 | Even Hume didn't include mathematics in his empiricism [Hume, by Kant] |
| 12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
| 5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
| 7446 | The idea of inductive evidence, around 1660, made Hume's problem possible [Hume, by Hacking] |
| 19626 | Our instincts had to be blunted and diminished, to make way for consciousness! [Cioran] |
| 21806 | Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume] |
| 3819 | Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume] |
| 1317 | A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume] |
| 1331 | The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume] |
| 1388 | Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume] |
| 21297 | A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume] |
| 1316 | Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume] |
| 1333 | Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume] |
| 1332 | We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume] |
| 21305 | Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume] |
| 21307 | Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume] |
| 21306 | Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume] |
| 21294 | A continuous lifelong self must be justified by a single sustained impression, which we don't have [Hume] |
| 21295 | When I introspect I can only observe my perceptions, and never a self which has them [Hume] |
| 21298 | We pretend our perceptions are continuous, and imagine a self to fill the gaps [Hume] |
| 21304 | Identity in the mind is a fiction, like that fiction that plants and animals stay the same [Hume] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 20030 | If one event causes another, the two events must be wholly distinct [Hume, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 6692 | For Hume, practical reason has little force, because we can always modify our desires [Hume, by Graham] |
| 8257 | Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will [Hume] |
| 19615 | I want to suppress in myself the normal reasons people have for action [Cioran] |
| 22374 | You can only hold people responsible for actions which arise out of their character [Hume] |
| 19628 | At a civilisation's peak values are all that matters, and people unconsciously live by them [Cioran] |
| 22382 | We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume] |
| 19646 | Values don't accumulate; they are ruthlessly replaced [Cioran] |
| 4008 | Modern science has destroyed the Platonic synthesis of scientific explanation and morality [Hume, by Taylor,C] |
| 8067 | The problem of getting to 'ought' from 'is' would also apply in getting to 'owes' or 'needs' [Anscombe on Hume] |
| 4578 | You can't move from 'is' to 'ought' without giving some explanation or reason for the deduction [Hume] |
| 19614 | Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran] |
| 3650 | Total selfishness is not irrational [Hume] |
| 19619 | To live authentically, we must see that philosophy is totally useless [Cioran] |
| 19634 | Man is never himself; he always aims at less than life, or more than life [Cioran] |
| 19617 | Evidence suggests that humans do not have a purpose [Cioran] |
| 19622 | The pointlessness of our motives and irrelevance of our gestures reveals our vacuity [Cioran] |
| 19612 | The universe is dirty and fragile, as if a scandal in nothingness had produced its matter [Cioran] |
| 19604 | Unlike other creatures, mankind seems lost in nature [Cioran] |
| 19606 | We can only live because our imagination and memory are poor [Cioran] |
| 19601 | Life is now more dreaded than death [Cioran] |
| 19640 | No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran] |
| 19602 | You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran] |
| 19641 | If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran] |
| 19644 | History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran] |
| 19613 | It is pointless to refuse or accept the social order; we must endure it like the weather [Cioran] |
| 19627 | Opportunists can save a nation, and heroes can ruin it [Cioran] |
| 19625 | The ideal is to impose a religion by force, and then live in doubt about its beliefs [Cioran] |
| 19605 | Despite endless suggestions, no one has found a goal for history [Cioran] |
| 19637 | History is wonderfully devoid of meaning [Cioran] |
| 19611 | No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran] |
| 19610 | Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran] |
| 19609 | If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran] |
| 19639 | We all need sexual secrets! [Cioran] |
| 14301 | We have no good concept of solidity or matter, because accounts of them are all circular [Hume] |
| 8382 | For Hume a constant conjunction is both necessary and sufficient for causation [Hume, by Crane] |
| 19274 | Hume seems to presuppose necessary connections between mental events [Kripke on Hume] |
| 19603 | Why is God so boring, and why does God resemble humanity so little? [Cioran] |
| 19616 | As the perfect wisdom of detachment, philosophy offers no rivals to Taoism [Cioran] |
| 19600 | When man abandons religion, he then follows new fake gods and mythologies [Cioran] |
| 19643 | A religion needs to motivate killings, and cannot tolerate rivals [Cioran] |
| 21296 | If all of my perceptions were removed by death, nothing more is needed for total annihilation [Hume] |
| 19623 | Circles of hell are ridiculous; all that matters is to be there [Cioran] |