114 ideas
| 2196 | The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
| 2197 | Reason assists experience in discovering laws, and in measuring their application [Hume] |
| 7700 | We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume] |
| 19482 | Current physics says matter and antimatter should have reduced to light at the big bang [New Sci.] |
| 19483 | CP violation shows a decay imbalance in matter and antimatter, leading to matter's dominance [New Sci.] |
| 13602 | We cannot form an idea of a 'power', and the word is without meaning [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [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] |
| 23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on 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] |
| 2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
| 2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
| 2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
| 2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [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] |
| 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] |
| 19737 | A system can infer the structure of the world by making predictions about it [New Sci.] |
| 2198 | We assume similar secret powers behind similar experiences, such as the nourishment of bread [Hume] |
| 2202 | Fools, children and animals all learn from experience [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] |
| 6350 | Premises can support an argument without entailing it [Pollock/Cruz on Hume] |
| 3598 | Hume just shows induction isn't deduction [Williams,M on Hume] |
| 19736 | Neural networks can extract the car-ness of a car, or the chair-ness of a chair [New Sci.] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 16419 | No one has yet devised a rationality test [New Sci.] |
| 16418 | People can be highly intelligent, yet very stupid [New Sci.] |
| 16417 | About a third of variation in human intelligence is environmental [New Sci.] |
| 19484 | Psychologists measure personality along five dimensions [New Sci.] |
| 2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
| 2233 | No government has ever suffered by being too tolerant of philosophy [Hume] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 19950 | Entropy is the only time-asymmetric law, so time may be linked to entropy [New Sci.] |
| 19478 | Light moves at a constant space-time speed, but its direction is in neither space nor time [New Sci.] |
| 19474 | Quantum states are measured by external time, of unknown origin [New Sci.] |
| 19473 | The Schrödinger equation describes the evolution of an object's wave function in Hilbert space [New Sci.] |
| 19476 | String theory needs at least 10 space-time dimensions [New Sci.] |
| 19953 | In string theory space-time has a grainy indivisible substructure [New Sci.] |
| 19954 | It is impossible for find a model of actuality among the innumerable models in string theory [New Sci.] |
| 19947 | Hilbert Space is an abstraction representing all possible states of a quantum system [New Sci.] |
| 19955 | Space-time may be a geometrical manifestation of quantum entanglement [New Sci.] |
| 19948 | Einstein's merging of time with space has left us confused about the nature of time [New Sci.] |
| 19475 | Relativity makes time and space jointly basic; quantum theory splits them, and prioritises time [New Sci.] |
| 19949 | Quantum theory relies on a clock outside the system - but where is it located? [New Sci.] |
| 19951 | Entropy is puzzling, so we may need to build new laws which include time directionality [New Sci.] |
| 19477 | General relativity predicts black holes, as former massive stars, and as galaxy centres [New Sci.] |
| 19952 | Black holes have entropy, but general relativity says they are unstructured, and lack entropy [New Sci.] |
| 16420 | 84.5 percent of the universe is made of dark matter [New Sci.] |
| 17604 | We are halfway to synthesising any molecule we want [New Sci.] |
| 17603 | Chemistry just needs the periodic table, and protons, electrons and neutrinos [New Sci.] |
| 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] |