44 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] |
| 13734 | Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 13751 | If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 13743 | We should not multiply basic entities, but we can have as many derivative entities as we like [Schaffer,J] |
| 20457 | Zeno assumes collecting an infinity of things makes an infinite thing [Rovelli] |
| 13741 | If 'there are red roses' implies 'there are roses', then 'there are prime numbers' implies 'there are numbers' [Schaffer,J] |
| 20468 | Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli] |
| 20467 | Quantum mechanics describes the world entirely as events [Rovelli] |
| 13748 | Grounding is unanalysable and primitive, and is the basic structuring concept in metaphysics [Schaffer,J] |
| 13747 | Supervenience is just modal correlation [Schaffer,J] |
| 13744 | The cosmos is the only fundamental entity, from which all else exists by abstraction [Schaffer,J] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 13739 | Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J] |
| 13742 | There exist heaps with no integral unity, so we should accept arbitrary composites in the same way [Schaffer,J] |
| 13752 | The notion of 'grounding' can explain integrated wholes in a way that mere aggregates can't [Schaffer,J] |
| 13749 | Belief in impossible worlds may require dialetheism [Schaffer,J] |
| 13740 | 'Moorean certainties' are more credible than any sceptical argument [Schaffer,J] |
| 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] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 20469 | There are probably no infinities, and 'infinite' names what we do not yet know [Rovelli] |
| 20461 | The basic ideas of fields and particles are merged in quantum mechanics [Rovelli] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 20462 | Because it is quantised, a field behaves like a set of packets of energy [Rovelli] |
| 20463 | There are about fifteen particles fields, plus a few force fields [Rovelli] |
| 20464 | The world consists of quantum fields, with elementary events happening in spacetime [Rovelli] |
| 20459 | Electrons only exist when they interact, and their being is their combination of quantum leaps [Rovelli] |
| 20460 | Electrons are not waves, because their collisions are at a point, and not spread out [Rovelli] |
| 20466 | Quantum Theory describes events and possible interactions - not how things are [Rovelli] |
| 20465 | Nature has three aspects: granularity, indeterminacy, and relations [Rovelli] |
| 20458 | The world is just particles plus fields; space is the gravitational field [Rovelli] |
| 20470 | Only heat distinguishes past from future [Rovelli] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |