96 ideas
| 22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
| 22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22642 | Man has an intense natural interest in the consistency of his own thinking [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 6710 | You can only define a statement that something is 'true' by referring to its functional possibilities [James] |
| 18986 | Truth is just a name for verification-processes [James] |
| 15186 | In the tenseless view, all times are equally real, so statements of the future have truth-values [Le Poidevin] |
| 18983 | In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object [James] |
| 18972 | Ideas are true in so far as they co-ordinate our experiences [James] |
| 18973 | New opinions count as 'true' if they are assimilated to an individual's current beliefs [James] |
| 22305 | If the hypothesis of God is widely successful, it is true [James] |
| 18984 | True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify (and false otherwise) [James] |
| 22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22641 | Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 18987 | A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes [James] |
| 18981 | 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James] |
| 18974 | Truth is a species of good, being whatever proves itself good in the way of belief [James] |
| 18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
| 22640 | We find satisfaction in consistency of all of our beliefs, perceptions and mental connections [James] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
| 18971 | Theories are practical tools for progress, not answers to enigmas [James] |
| 15207 | We want illuminating theories, rather than coherent theories [Le Poidevin] |
| 18982 | Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James] |
| 18985 | True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James] |
| 22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
| 22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
| 22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| 22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
| 22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
| 9286 | Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James] |
| 9285 | 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James] |
| 23981 | Rage is inconceivable without bodily responses; so there are no disembodied emotions [James] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 18975 | We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James] |
| 22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 6866 | It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin] |
| 15190 | Evil can't be an illusion, because then the illusion that there is evil would be evil [Le Poidevin] |
| 6570 | Imagine millions made happy on condition that one person suffers endless lonely torture [James] |
| 6867 | Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin] |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| 22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
| 22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
| 22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
| 22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
| 22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
| 22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
| 22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
| 15195 | If the future is not real, we don't seem to have any obligation to future individuals [Le Poidevin] |
| 15188 | If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin] |
| 22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
| 15191 | At the very least, minds themselves seem to be tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15197 | Fiction seems to lack a tensed perspective, and offers an example of tenseless language [Le Poidevin] |
| 15206 | It is the view of the future that really decides between tensed and tenseless views of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 15198 | In the B-series, time-positions are unchanging; in the A-series they change (from future to present to past) [Le Poidevin] |
| 15189 | Things which have ceased change their A-series position; things that persist change their B-series position [Le Poidevin] |
| 6865 | A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
| 22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
| 15193 | The new tenseless theory offers indexical truth-conditions, instead of a reductive analysis [Le Poidevin] |
| 22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
| 22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
| 22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
| 22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
| 22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
| 22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
| 22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
| 22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
| 22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
| 22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| 22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
| 22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
| 22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
| 22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
| 18980 | If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything [James] |
| 18978 | It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James] |
| 15196 | God being inside or outside of time both raise a group of difficult problems [Le Poidevin] |
| 22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
| 18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
| 18977 | The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James] |
| 18979 | Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James] |
| 18976 | Private experience is the main evidence for God [James] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |
| 18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |