30 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] |
22520 | You can't reason someone out of an irrational opinion [Swift] |
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] |
6237 | Fear of God is not conscience, which is a natural feeling of offence at bad behaviour [Shaftesbury] |
6234 | If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury] |
6233 | A person isn't good if only tying their hands prevents their mischief, so the affections decide a person's morality [Shaftesbury] |
6236 | People more obviously enjoy social pleasures than they do eating and drinking [Shaftesbury] |
6235 | Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury] |
6232 | Every creature has a right and a wrong state which guide its actions, so there must be a natural end [Shaftesbury] |
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] |
5642 | For Shaftesbury, we must already have a conscience to be motivated to religious obedience [Shaftesbury, by Scruton] |