53 ideas
| 12104 | All ideas must be understood historically [Comte] |
| 12105 | Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte] |
| 12112 | Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena [Comte] |
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte] |
| 12106 | Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte] |
| 12114 | Science can drown in detail, so we need broad scientists (to keep out the metaphysicians) [Comte] |
| 12116 | Only positivist philosophy can terminate modern social crises [Comte] |
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| 19342 | Reason avoids multiplying hypotheses or principles [Leibniz] |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| 12711 | The immediate cause of movements is more real [than geometry] [Leibniz] |
| 19349 | The complete notion of a substance implies all of its predicates or attributes [Leibniz] |
| 7558 | Substances mirror God or the universe, each from its own viewpoint [Leibniz] |
| 16761 | Forms are of no value in physics, but are indispensable in metaphysics [Leibniz] |
| 13088 | Subjects include predicates, so full understanding of subjects reveals all the predicates [Leibniz] |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| 13085 | Leibniz is some form of haecceitist [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| 5024 | Knowledge doesn't just come from the senses; we know the self, substance, identity, being etc. [Leibniz] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 12107 | Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte] |
| 12115 | Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte] |
| 5027 | If a person's memories became totally those of the King of China, he would be the King of China [Leibniz] |
| 5023 | Future contingent events are certain, because God foresees them, but that doesn't make them necessary [Leibniz] |
| 2119 | People argue for God's free will, but it isn't needed if God acts in perfection following supreme reason [Leibniz] |
| 5025 | Mind and body can't influence one another, but God wouldn't intervene in the daily routine [Leibniz] |
| 5026 | Animals lack morality because they lack self-reflection [Leibniz] |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12113 | The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte] |
| 12110 | We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte] |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |