47 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
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] |
9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
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] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
18639 | If we assess what people would buy in an imaginary insurance market, our taxes could copy it [Dworkin, by Kymlicka] |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |