51 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
17304 | As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J] |
17306 | If ground is transitive and irreflexive, it has a strict partial ordering, giving structure [Schaffer,J] |
16744 | All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes] |
5016 | Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes] |
5015 | A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes] |
16630 | If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes] |
5013 | A substance needs nothing else in order to exist [Descartes] |
16633 | A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes] |
3658 | Total doubt can't include your existence while doubting [Descartes] |
5005 | I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes] |
5006 | 'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes] |
5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
17308 | Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J] |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
5010 | Our free will is so self-evident to us that it must be a basic innate idea [Descartes] |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
5011 | There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes] |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
5018 | Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes] |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
5009 | We do not praise the acts of an efficient automaton, as their acts are necessary [Descartes] |
5008 | The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes] |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
15987 | Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes] |
17305 | I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J] |
12730 | We will not try to understand natural or divine ends, or final causes [Descartes] |
16601 | Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes] |
17307 | Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J] |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |