38 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
22338 | An unexamined life can be virtuous [Murdoch] |
22337 | Philosophy must keep returning to the beginning [Murdoch] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
23563 | Philosophy moves continually between elaborate theories and the obvious facts [Murdoch] |
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] |
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] |
22341 | Literature is the most important aspect of culture, because it teaches understanding of living [Murdoch] |
22347 | Appreciating beauty in art or nature opens up the good life, by restricting selfishness [Murdoch] |
22348 | Ordinary human love is good evidence of transcendent goodness [Murdoch] |
22339 | Love is a central concept in morals [Murdoch] |
22343 | If I attend properly I will have no choices [Murdoch] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
22349 | Art trains us in the love of virtue [Murdoch] |
22340 | It is hard to learn goodness from others, because their virtues are part of their personal history [Murdoch] |
22346 | Moral reflection and experience gradually reveals unity in the moral world [Murdoch] |
22350 | Only trivial virtues can be possessed on their own [Murdoch] |
22351 | Only a philosopher might think choices create values [Murdoch] |
22342 | Kantian existentialists care greatly for reasons for action, whereas Surrealists care nothing [Murdoch] |
19399 | Prime matter is nothing when it is at rest [Leibniz] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
22345 | Moral philosophy needs a central concept with all the traditional attributes of God [Murdoch] |