79 ideas
| 20262 | Don't use wisdom in order to become clever! [Nietzsche] |
| 20255 | Early 19th century German philosophers enjoyed concepts, rather than scientific explanations [Nietzsche] |
| 20260 | Carlyle spent his life vainly trying to make reason appear romantic [Nietzsche] |
| 20256 | What we think is totally dictated by the language available to express it [Nietzsche] |
| 20265 | The desire for a complete system requires making the weak parts look equal to the rest [Nietzsche] |
| 20380 | Why should truth be omnipotent? It is enough that it is very powerful [Nietzsche] |
| 20235 | Like animals, we seek truth because we want safety [Nietzsche] |
| 16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
| 12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
| 12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
| 12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
| 12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
| 12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
| 12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
| 12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
| 12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
| 12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
| 12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
| 12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
| 20258 | Most people treat knowledge as a private possession [Nietzsche] |
| 20250 | We may be unable to remember, but we may never actually forget [Nietzsche] |
| 20270 | There is no one scientific method; we must try many approaches, and many emotions [Nietzsche] |
| 16182 | Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N] |
| 16184 | An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16167 | Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16169 | Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N] |
| 16171 | The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N] |
| 16176 | Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N] |
| 16177 | I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N] |
| 16180 | You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N] |
| 12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
| 12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
| 16183 | In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N] |
| 12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
| 20131 | We can cultivate our drives, of anger, pity, curiosity, vanity, like a gardener, with good or bad taste [Nietzsche] |
| 20242 | Things are the boundaries of humanity, so all things must be known, for self-knowledge [Nietzsche] |
| 20249 | Our knowledge of the many drives that constitute us is hopelessly incomplete [Nietzsche] |
| 20231 | People used to think that outcomes were from God, rather than consequences of acts [Nietzsche] |
| 20266 | It is essential that wise people learn to express their wisdom, possibly even as foolishness [Nietzsche] |
| 20251 | Actions done for a purpose are least understood, because we complacently think it's obvious [Nietzsche] |
| 20271 | Beauty in art is the imitation of happiness [Nietzsche] |
| 20230 | The very idea of a critique of morality is regarded as immoral! [Nietzsche] |
| 20234 | Morality prevents us from developing better customs [Nietzsche] |
| 20237 | Moral feelings are entirely different from the moral concepts used to judge actions [Nietzsche] |
| 20238 | Treating morality as feelings is just obeying your ancestors [Nietzsche] |
| 20243 | Human beings are not majestic, either through divine origins, or through grand aims [Nietzsche] |
| 20268 | Most dying people have probably lost more important things than what they are about to lose [Nietzsche] |
| 20236 | Marriage upholds the idea that love, though a passion, can endure [Nietzsche] |
| 20263 | Fear reveals the natures of other people much more clearly than love does [Nietzsche] |
| 20252 | Marriage is too serious to be permitted for people in love! [Nietzsche] |
| 20233 | Punishment has distorted the pure innocence of the contingency of outcomes [Nietzsche] |
| 20248 | People do nothing for their real ego, but only for a phantom ego created by other people [Nietzsche] |
| 20246 | If you feel to others as they feel to themselves, you must hate a self-hater [Nietzsche] |
| 20272 | Honesty is a new young virtue, and we can promote it, or not [Nietzsche] |
| 20240 | The Jews treated great anger as holy, and were in awe of those who expressed it [Nietzsche] |
| 20244 | Christianity replaces rational philosophical virtues with great passions focused on God [Nietzsche] |
| 20274 | The cardinal virtues want us to be honest, brave, magnanimous and polite [Nietzsche] |
| 20257 | Cool courage and feverish bravery have one name, but are two very different virtues [Nietzsche] |
| 20259 | Teach youth to respect people who differ with them, not people who agree with them [Nietzsche] |
| 20267 | Seeing duty as a burden makes it a bit cruel, and it can thus never become a habit [Nietzsche] |
| 20275 | Most people think they are already complete, but we can cultivate ourselves [Nietzsche] |
| 20229 | No authority ever willingly accepts criticism [Nietzsche] |
| 20254 | People govern for the pleasure of it, or just to avoid being governed [Nietzsche] |
| 20273 | The French Revolution gave trusting Europe the false delusion of instant recovery [Nietzsche] |
| 20232 | Get rid of the idea of punishment! It is a noxious weed! [Nietzsche] |
| 20253 | Modern wars arise from the study of history [Nietzsche] |
| 20261 | History does not concern what really happened, but supposed events, which have all the influence [Nietzsche] |
| 16175 | A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 16179 | Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N] |
| 16178 | There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N] |
| 16170 | To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N] |
| 16181 | Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N] |
| 20241 | Enquirers think finding our origin is salvation, but it turns out to be dull [Nietzsche] |
| 20245 | Christianity hoped for a short cut to perfection, that skipped the hard labour of morality [Nietzsche] |
| 20247 | Christianity was successful because of its heathen rituals [Nietzsche] |
| 20269 | 'I believe because it is absurd' - but how about 'I believe because I am absurd' [Nietzsche] |
| 20264 | The easy and graceful aspects of a person are called 'soul', and inner awkwardness is called 'soulless' [Nietzsche] |