137 ideas
2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
8014 | Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre] |
2187 | If we suspect that a philosophical term is meaningless, we should ask what impression it derives from [Hume] |
2200 | All experimental conclusions assume that the future will be like the past [Hume] |
4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
10794 | The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10788 | Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10786 | Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10799 | Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10790 | Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10791 | Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10785 | Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10798 | A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10795 | Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)] |
2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
10787 | Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
7559 | Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes] |
13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
10789 | Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10796 | If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
10797 | Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)] |
2216 | We transfer the frequency of past observations to our future predictions [Hume] |
2215 | There is no such thing as chance [Hume] |
2209 | Belief is stronger, clearer and steadier than imagination [Hume] |
2208 | Belief is just a particular feeling attached to ideas of objects [Hume] |
2207 | Belief can't be a concept plus an idea, or we could add the idea to fictions [Hume] |
3661 | 'Natural beliefs' are unavoidable, whatever our judgements [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
2213 | Beliefs are built up by resemblance, contiguity and causation [Hume] |
2191 | Relations of ideas are known by thought, independently from the world [Hume] |
2239 | If secondary qualities (e.g. hardness) are in the mind, so are primary qualities like extension [Hume] |
2237 | It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects [Hume] |
2356 | Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes [Hobbes] |
23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on Hume] |
2192 | All reasoning about facts is causal; nothing else goes beyond memory and senses [Hume] |
2246 | If books don't relate ideas or explain facts, commit them to the flames [Hume] |
2190 | All objects of enquiry are Relations of Ideas, or Matters of Fact [Hume] |
2182 | Impressions are our livelier perceptions, Ideas the less lively ones [Hume] |
2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [Hume] |
2189 | All ideas are connected by Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect [Hume] |
2702 | Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume] |
2183 | We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume] |
2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume] |
2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on Hume] |
23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
2206 | Reasons for belief must eventually terminate in experience, or they are without foundation [Hume] |
2235 | There is no certain supreme principle, or infallible rule of inference [Hume] |
10328 | We think testimony matches reality because of experience, not some a priori connection [Hume] |
2230 | Good testimony needs education, integrity, motive and agreement [Hume, by PG] |
2238 | Reason can never show that experiences are connected to external objects [Hume] |
2242 | Mitigated scepticism draws attention to the limitations of human reason, and encourages modesty [Hume] |
2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
2236 | Examples of illusion only show that sense experience needs correction by reason [Hume] |
2357 | Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd [Hobbes] |
2240 | It is a very extravagant aim of the sceptics to destroy reason and argument by means of reason and argument [Hume] |
2241 | The main objection to scepticism is that no good can come of it [Hume] |
2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
2204 | All inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning [Hume] |
2199 | Reason cannot show why reliable past experience should extend to future times and remote places [Hume] |
2201 | Induction can't prove that the future will be like the past, since induction assumes this [Hume] |
2203 | If we infer causes from repetition, this explains why we infer from a thousand objects what we couldn't infer from one [Hume] |
2202 | Fools, children and animals all learn from experience [Hume] |
3598 | Hume just shows induction isn't deduction [Williams,M on Hume] |
6350 | Premises can support an argument without entailing it [Pollock/Cruz on Hume] |
2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
2211 | When I am close to (contiguous with) home, I feel its presence more nearly [Hume] |
2214 | Our awareness of patterns of causation is too important to be left to slow and uncertain reasoning [Hume] |
2212 | An object made by a saint is the best way to produce thoughts of him [Hume] |
2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
2358 | Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes] |
6214 | Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes] |
2223 | Liberty is merely acting according to the will, which anyone can do if they are not in chains [Hume] |
3655 | Hume makes determinism less rigid by removing the necessity from causation [Trusted on Hume] |
23987 | The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief [Hobbes, by Goldie] |
2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
2362 | The will is just the last appetite before action [Hobbes] |
2363 | Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars [Hobbes] |
2224 | Praise and blame can only be given if an action proceeds from a person's character and disposition [Hume] |
2225 | If you deny all necessity and causation, then our character is not responsible for our crime [Hume] |
2226 | Repentance gets rid of guilt, which shows that responsibility arose from the criminal principles in the mind [Hume] |
2360 | 'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes] |
2368 | Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so [Hobbes] |
2359 | Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes] |
2370 | All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer [Hobbes] |
2371 | A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes] |
2372 | The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes] |
8015 | Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
5337 | For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan] |
2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
8016 | Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
2375 | Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes] |
2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
2373 | The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes] |
2382 | Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes] |
2383 | Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes] |
2376 | Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes] |
2367 | In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes] |
19764 | Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau] |
20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
2366 | There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another [Hobbes] |
20485 | Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
2369 | If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes] |
20484 | We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
7573 | The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural [Hobbes, by Jolley] |
2380 | Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence [Hobbes] |
2361 | If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition [Hobbes] |
2195 | We can discover some laws of nature, but never its ultimate principles and causes [Hume] |
2245 | A priori it looks as if a cause could have absolutely any effect [Hume] |
4772 | If a singular effect is studied, its cause can only be inferred from the types of events involved [Hume] |
8341 | Hume never even suggests that there is no such thing as causation [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
8344 | At first Hume said qualities are the causal entities, but later he said events [Hume, by Davidson] |
2234 | It is only when two species of thing are constantly conjoined that we can infer one from the other [Hume] |
2364 | Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between [Hobbes] |
3662 | Hume says we can only know constant conjunctions, not that that's what causation IS [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
4771 | In both of Hume's definitions, causation is extrinsic to the sequence of events [Psillos on Hume] |
5194 | Hume's definition of cause as constantly joined thoughts can't cover undiscovered laws [Ayer on Hume] |
2221 | A cause is either similar events following one another, or an experience always suggesting a second experience [Hume] |
2193 | No causes can be known a priori, but only from experience of constant conjunctions [Hume] |
8422 | Cause is where if the first object had not been, the second had not existed [Hume] |
2218 | In observing causes we can never observe any necessary connections or binding qualities [Hume] |
15249 | Hume never shows how a strong habit could generate the concept of necessity [Harré/Madden on Hume] |
8339 | Hume's regularity theory of causation is epistemological; he believed in some sort of natural necessity [Hume, by Strawson,G] |
2244 | It can never be a logical contradiction to assert the non-existence of something thought to exist [Hume] |
2232 | You can't infer the cause to be any greater than its effect [Hume] |
2229 | To establish a miracle the falseness of the evidence must be a greater miracle than the claimed miraculous event [Hume] |
2227 | A miracle violates laws which have been established by continuous unchanging experience, so should be ignored [Hume] |
2228 | All experience must be against a supposed miracle, or it wouldn't be called 'a miracle' [Hume] |
2185 | The idea of an infinite, intelligent, wise and good God arises from augmenting the best qualities of our own minds [Hume] |
2365 | Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes] |
2378 | Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip [Hobbes] |