42 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] |
20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
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] |
16477 | Asserting not-p is saying p is false [Russell] |
3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
16484 | There are four experiences that lead us to talk of 'some' things [Russell] |
16486 | The physical world doesn't need logic, but the mental world does [Russell] |
2947 | Questions wouldn't lead anywhere without the law of excluded middle [Russell] |
16480 | A disjunction expresses indecision [Russell] |
16479 | 'Or' expresses hesitation, in a dog at a crossroads, or birds risking grabbing crumbs [Russell] |
16481 | 'Or' expresses a mental state, not something about the world [Russell] |
16487 | Maybe the 'or' used to describe mental states is not the 'or' of logic [Russell] |
16483 | Disjunction may also arise in practice if there is imperfect memory. [Russell] |
16475 | A 'heterological' predicate can't be predicated of itself; so is 'heterological' heterological? Yes=no! [Russell] |
16482 | All our knowledge (if verbal) is general, because all sentences contain general words [Russell] |
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] |
4758 | Naïve realism leads to physics, but physics then shows that naïve realism is false [Russell] |
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] |
16476 | For simple words, a single experience can show that they are true [Russell] |
16485 | Perception can't prove universal generalisations, so abandon them, or abandon empiricism? [Russell] |
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] |
16478 | A mother cat is paralysed if equidistant between two needy kittens [Russell] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |