28 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] |
6230 | If the soul were a tabula rasa, with no innate ideas, there could be no moral goodness or justice [Cudworth] |
6228 | Senses cannot judge one another, so what judges senses cannot be a sense, but must be superior [Cudworth] |
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] |
6229 | Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth] |
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] |
6227 | Keeping promises and contracts is an obligation of natural justice [Cudworth] |
6225 | Obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws [Cudworth] |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
6224 | An omnipotent will cannot make two things equal or alike if they aren't [Cudworth] |
6223 | If the will and pleasure of God controls justice, then anything wicked or unjust would become good if God commanded it [Cudworth] |
6226 | The requirement that God must be obeyed must precede any authority of God's commands [Cudworth] |
22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |