93 ideas
20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
20771 | Six parts: dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, theology [Cleanthes, by Diog. Laertius] |
3807 | Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions [Hume] |
8649 | Two numbers are equal if all of their units correspond to one another [Hume] |
21291 | There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume] |
11942 | Power is the possibility of action, as discovered by experience [Hume] |
11949 | There may well be powers in things, with which we are quite unacquainted [Hume] |
11950 | We have no idea of powers, because we have no impressions of them [Hume] |
11941 | The distinction between a power and its exercise is entirely frivolous [Hume] |
11098 | Momentary impressions are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance [Hume, by Quine] |
7954 | If we see a resemblance among objects, we apply the same name to them, despite their differences [Hume] |
21293 | Individuation is only seeing that a thing is stable and continuous over time [Hume] |
12048 | The only meaning we have for substance is a collection of qualities [Hume] |
13424 | Aristotelians propose accidents supported by substance, but they don't understand either of them [Hume] |
21300 | A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume] |
21299 | Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume] |
1330 | If a republic can retain identity through many changes, so can an individual [Hume] |
1321 | If identity survives change or interruption, then resemblance, contiguity or causation must unite the parts of it [Hume] |
21302 | If a ruined church is rebuilt, its relation to its parish makes it the same church [Hume] |
21303 | We accept the identity of a river through change, because it is the river's nature [Hume] |
21301 | The purpose of the ship makes it the same one through all variations [Hume] |
21290 | Multiple objects cannot convey identity, because we see them as different [Hume] |
1207 | Both number and unity are incompatible with the relation of identity [Hume] |
21289 | 'An object is the same with itself' is meaningless; it expresses unity, not identity [Hume] |
21292 | Saying an object is the same with itself is only meaningful over a period of time [Hume] |
9428 | Nothing we clearly imagine is absolutely impossible [Hume] |
4766 | Necessity only exists in the mind, and not in objects [Hume] |
6526 | Hume says objects are not a construction, but an imaginative leap [Hume, by Robinson,H] |
6489 | Associationism results from having to explain intentionality just with sense-data [Robinson,H on Hume] |
6182 | Even Hume didn't include mathematics in his empiricism [Hume, by Kant] |
12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
7446 | The idea of inductive evidence, around 1660, made Hume's problem possible [Hume, by Hacking] |
21806 | Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume] |
3819 | Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume] |
1317 | A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume] |
1331 | The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume] |
1388 | Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume] |
21297 | A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume] |
1316 | Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume] |
1333 | Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume] |
1332 | We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume] |
21305 | Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume] |
21307 | Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume] |
21306 | Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume] |
21294 | A continuous lifelong self must be justified by a single sustained impression, which we don't have [Hume] |
21295 | When I introspect I can only observe my perceptions, and never a self which has them [Hume] |
21298 | We pretend our perceptions are continuous, and imagine a self to fill the gaps [Hume] |
21304 | Identity in the mind is a fiction, like that fiction that plants and animals stay the same [Hume] |
6028 | Bodies interact with other bodies, and cuts cause pain, and shame causes blushing, so the soul is a body [Cleanthes, by Nemesius] |
20831 | The soul suffers when the body hurts, creates redness from shame, and pallor from fear [Cleanthes] |
20030 | If one event causes another, the two events must be wholly distinct [Hume, by Wilson/Schpall] |
6692 | For Hume, practical reason has little force, because we can always modify our desires [Hume, by Graham] |
8257 | Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will [Hume] |
22374 | You can only hold people responsible for actions which arise out of their character [Hume] |
22382 | We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume] |
4008 | Modern science has destroyed the Platonic synthesis of scientific explanation and morality [Hume, by Taylor,C] |
8067 | The problem of getting to 'ought' from 'is' would also apply in getting to 'owes' or 'needs' [Anscombe on Hume] |
4578 | You can't move from 'is' to 'ought' without giving some explanation or reason for the deduction [Hume] |
3650 | Total selfishness is not irrational [Hume] |
20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
14301 | We have no good concept of solidity or matter, because accounts of them are all circular [Hume] |
8382 | For Hume a constant conjunction is both necessary and sufficient for causation [Hume, by Crane] |
19274 | Hume seems to presuppose necessary connections between mental events [Kripke on Hume] |
5993 | The ascending scale of living creatures requires a perfect being [Cleanthes, by Tieleman] |
20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |
21296 | If all of my perceptions were removed by death, nothing more is needed for total annihilation [Hume] |