34 ideas
7910 | Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha] |
24032 | Clever scholars can obscure things which are obvious even to peasants [Descartes] |
24033 | Most scholastic disputes concern words, where agreeing on meanings would settle them [Descartes] |
24024 | The secret of the method is to recognise which thing in a series is the simplest [Descartes] |
24018 | One truth leads us to another [Descartes] |
24036 | I can only see the proportion of two to three if there is a common measure - their unity [Descartes] |
24035 | Unity is something shared by many things, so in that respect they are equals [Descartes] |
24029 | Among the simples are the graspable negations, such as rest and instants [Descartes] |
5311 | If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO] |
5312 | A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO] |
24030 | 3+4=7 is necessary because we cannot conceive of seven without including three and four [Descartes] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
24019 | If we accept mere probabilities as true we undermine our existing knowledge [Descartes] |
24031 | When Socrates doubts, he know he doubts, and that truth is possible [Descartes] |
24020 | We all see intuitively that we exist, where intuition is attentive, clear and distinct rational understanding [Descartes] |
24025 | Clear and distinct truths must be known all at once (unlike deductions) [Descartes] |
24022 | Our souls possess divine seeds of knowledge, which can bear spontaneous fruit [Descartes] |
24034 | If someone had only seen the basic colours, they could deduce the others from resemblance [Descartes] |
24021 | The method starts with clear intuitions, followed by a process of deduction [Descartes] |
24027 | Nerves and movement originate in the brain, where imagination moves them [Descartes] |
24026 | Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes] |
24028 | The force by which we know things is spiritual, and quite distinct from the body [Descartes] |
5310 | Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO] |
5313 | The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO] |
5316 | We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO] |
5318 | Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO] |
5317 | The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO] |
5308 | The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO] |
24023 | All the sciences searching for order and measure are related to mathematics [Descartes] |
5314 | Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO] |
5315 | Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO] |
7909 | The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |
7908 | At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha] |