34 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] |
13407 | All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau] |
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] |
13409 | Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau] |
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] |
13406 | A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau] |
3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
13408 | Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau] |
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] |
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] |
9264 | Persons are distinguished by a capacity for second-order desires [Frankfurt] |
9266 | A person essentially has second-order volitions, and not just second-order desires [Frankfurt] |
9267 | Free will is the capacity to choose what sort of will you have [Frankfurt] |
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] |
13410 | Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau] |
9265 | The will is the effective desire which actually leads to an action [Frankfurt] |
20015 | Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall] |
9270 | A 'wanton' is not a person, because they lack second-order volitions [Frankfurt] |
9269 | A person may be morally responsible without free will [Frankfurt] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |