44 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] |
22121 | The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22122 | Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22125 | Duns Scotus was a realist about universals [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22127 | Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22126 | Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
22129 | Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
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] |
22130 | Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22128 | Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
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] |
12790 | Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan] |
12789 | Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan] |
14388 | Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan] |
12787 | Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan] |
14384 | We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan] |
14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan] |
14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |
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] |
22131 | The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
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] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
14382 | Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan] |
14385 | Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
14383 | A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan] |
22123 | The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
22124 | We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |