43 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] |
2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
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] |
2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
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] |
2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
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] |
2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
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] |
2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
20740 | Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno] |
2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |