50 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
7621 | Special relativity, unlike general relativity, was operationalist in spirit [Putnam on Einstein] |
3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
23928 | Good art produces exaltation and detachment [Bell,C] |
23922 | The word 'beauty' leads to confusion, because it denotes distinct emotions [Bell,C] |
23921 | Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art [Bell,C] |
23929 | We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value [Bell,C] |
23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
23932 | Art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
23927 | Aestheticism invites artist to create beauty, but with no indication of how to do it [Bell,C] |
8115 | Only artists can discern significant form; other people must look to art to find it [Bell,C, by Gardner] |
23924 | Maybe significant form gives us a feeling for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
23931 | Significant form is the essence of art, which I believe expresses an emotion about reality [Bell,C] |
20434 | 'Form' is visual relations, and it is 'significant' if it moves us aesthetically; art needs both [Bell,C, by Feagin] |
23934 | The only expression art could have is the emotion resulting from pure form [Bell,C] |
23925 | Mere copies of pictures are not significant - unless the copies are very exact [Bell,C] |
23926 | Art is distinguished by its aesthetic emotion, which produces appropriate form [Bell,C] |
23933 | Aesthetic contemplation is the best and most intense mental state [Bell,C] |
23935 | Aesthetic experience is an exaltation which increases the possibilities of life [Bell,C] |
22691 | Only artistic qualities matter in art, because they also have the highest moral value [Bell,C] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
22955 | Einstein took causation to be the bedrock of physics [Einstein, by Coveney/Highfield] |
20638 | General relativity assumes laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference [Einstein, by Close] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
20636 | Newton is a special case of Einstein's general theory, with an infinite speed of light [Einstein, by Close] |
21230 | The theory is 'special' because it sticks to observers moving straight, at constant speeds [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
21231 | Assume the speed of light is constant for all observers, and the laws of physics are the same [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
20634 | General Relativity says there is no absolute force or acceleration [Einstein, by Close] |
20648 | Mass is a measure of energy content [Einstein] |
21232 | Space-time arises from the connection between measurements of space and of time [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
7626 | I do not believe in a personal God [Einstein] |
23930 | Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest [Bell,C] |