67 ideas
3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
19250 | Everything interesting should be recorded, with records that can be rearranged [Peirce] |
19228 | Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence [Peirce] |
19241 | An idea on its own isn't an idea, because they are continuous systems [Peirce] |
19227 | Philosophy is a search for real truth [Peirce] |
3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
19218 | Metaphysics is pointless without exact modern logic [Peirce] |
19229 | Metaphysics is the science of both experience, and its general laws and types [Peirce] |
19219 | Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard [Peirce] |
19231 | Metaphysics is turning into logic, and logic is becoming mathematics [Peirce] |
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] |
19247 | The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce] |
3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
19246 | 'Holding for true' is either practical commitment, or provisional theory [Peirce] |
19237 | Deduction is true when the premises facts necessarily make the conclusion fact true [Peirce] |
19256 | Our research always hopes that reality embodies the logic we are employing [Peirce] |
19238 | The logic of relatives relies on objects built of any relations (rather than on classes) [Peirce] |
19226 | We now know that mathematics only studies hypotheses, not facts [Peirce] |
19240 | Realism is the belief that there is something in the being of things corresponding to our reasoning [Peirce] |
19239 | There may be no reality; it's just our one desperate hope of knowing anything [Peirce] |
16065 | Constitution is identity (being in the same place), or it isn't (having different possibilities) [Wasserman] |
16067 | Constitution is not identity, because it is an asymmetric dependence relation [Wasserman] |
16069 | There are three main objections to seeing constitution as different from identity [Wasserman] |
16068 | The weight of a wall is not the weight of its parts, since that would involve double-counting [Wasserman] |
16074 | Relative identity may reject transitivity, but that suggests that it isn't about 'identity' [Wasserman] |
19252 | Objective chance is the property of a distribution [Peirce] |
19232 | In ordinary language a conditional statement assumes that the antecedent is true [Peirce] |
3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
19223 | We act on 'full belief' in a crisis, but 'opinion' only operates for trivial actions [Peirce] |
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] |
19253 | We talk of 'association by resemblance' but that is wrong: the association constitutes the resemblance [Peirce] |
19224 | Scientists will give up any conclusion, if experience opposes it [Peirce] |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
19243 | If each inference slightly reduced our certainty, science would soon be in trouble [Peirce] |
3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
19225 | I classify science by level of abstraction; principles derive from above, and data from below [Peirce] |
19234 | 'Induction' doesn't capture Greek 'epagoge', which is singulars in a mass producing the general [Peirce] |
19235 | How does induction get started? [Peirce] |
19236 | Induction can never prove that laws have no exceptions [Peirce] |
19251 | The worst fallacy in induction is generalising one recondite property from a sample [Peirce] |
19222 | Men often answer inner 'whys' by treating unconscious instincts as if they were reasons [Peirce] |
19220 | We may think animals reason very little, but they hardly ever make mistakes! [Peirce] |
3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
19255 | Generalisation is the great law of mind [Peirce] |
19242 | Generalization is the true end of life [Peirce] |
3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
19249 | 'Know yourself' is not introspection; it is grasping how others see you [Peirce] |
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] |
19257 | Whatever is First must be sentient [Peirce] |
19248 | Reasoning involves observation, experiment, and habituation [Peirce] |
19221 | Everybody overrates their own reasoning, so it is clearly superficial [Peirce] |
3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
19233 | Indexicals are unusual words, because they stimulate the hearer to look around [Peirce] |
1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
19230 | People should follow what lies before them, and is within their power [Peirce] |
19245 | We are not inspired by other people's knowledge; a sense of our ignorance motivates study [Peirce] |
19244 | Chemists rely on a single experiment to establish a fact; repetition is pointless [Peirce] |
19254 | Our laws of nature may be the result of evolution [Peirce] |
16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |