26 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] |
22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
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] |
22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
6375 | The taste of chocolate is a 'finer-grained' sensation than the taste of sweetness [Polger] |
7458 | The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking] |
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] |
6381 | The mind and the self are one, and the mind-self is a biological phenomenon [Polger] |
3441 | If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace] |
6378 | Teleological functions explain why a trait exists; causal-role functions say what it does [Polger] |
6380 | Identity theory says consciousness is an abstraction: a state, event, process or property [Polger] |
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] |
6379 | A mummified heart has the teleological function of circulating blood [Polger] |
6377 | Teleological notions of function say what a thing is supposed to do [Polger] |
22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |