64 ideas
| 6200 | Wisdom is knowing the highest good, and conforming the will to it [Kant] |
| 6207 | What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me [Kant] |
| 6184 | Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher [Kant] |
| 6203 | Metaphysics is just a priori universal principles of physics [Kant] |
| 579 | Cratylus said you couldn't even step into the same river once [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
| 6181 | Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant] |
| 578 | Cratylus decided speech was hopeless, and his only expression was the movement of a finger [Cratylus, by Aristotle] |
| 17405 | If a theory can be fudged, so can observations [Scerri] |
| 17397 | The periodic system is the big counterexample to Kuhn's theory of revolutionary science [Scerri] |
| 17393 | Scientists eventually seek underlying explanations for every pattern [Scerri] |
| 17403 | The periodic table suggests accommodation to facts rates above prediction [Scerri] |
| 6183 | Can pure reason determine the will, or are empirical conditions relevant? [Kant] |
| 6191 | The will is the faculty of purposes, which guide desires according to principles [Kant] |
| 6190 | The sole objects of practical reason are the good and the evil [Kant] |
| 18235 | Only human reason can confer value on our choices [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| 6196 | People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant] |
| 18675 | Kant may rate two things as finally valuable: having a good will, and deserving happiness [Orsi on Kant] |
| 22007 | An autonomous agent has dignity [Würde], which has absolute worth [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| 18234 | The good will is unconditionally good, because it is the only possible source of value [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| 6192 | Good or evil cannot be a thing, but only a maxim of action, making the person good or evil [Kant] |
| 6197 | Morality involves duty and respect for law, not love of the outcome [Kant] |
| 6193 | Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant] |
| 1452 | Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish [Kant] |
| 1454 | Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant] |
| 6194 | The highest worth for human beings lies in dispositions, not just actions [Kant] |
| 6198 | Virtue is the supreme state of our pursuit of happiness, and so is supreme good [Kant] |
| 1456 | Moral law is holy, and the best we can do is achieve virtue through respect for the law [Kant] |
| 6185 | No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant] |
| 6187 | Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant] |
| 6201 | Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant] |
| 6186 | A holy will is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law [Kant] |
| 6195 | Reason cannot solve the problem of why a law should motivate the will [Kant] |
| 6188 | A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant] |
| 17394 | Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri] |
| 17421 | If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri] |
| 17396 | The colour of gold is best explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17420 | The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy [Scerri] |
| 17411 | If all elements are multiples of one (of hydrogen), that suggests once again that matter is unified [Scerri] |
| 17409 | Does radioactivity show that only physics can explain chemistry? [Scerri] |
| 17415 | A big chemistry idea is that covalent bonds are shared electrons, not transfer of electrons [Scerri] |
| 17392 | How can poisonous elements survive in the nutritious compound they compose? [Scerri] |
| 17391 | Periodicity and bonding are the two big ideas in chemistry [Scerri] |
| 17404 | Chemistry does not work from general principles, but by careful induction from large amounts of data [Scerri] |
| 17407 | The electron is the main source of chemical properties [Scerri] |
| 17418 | It is now thought that all the elements have literally evolved from hydrogen [Scerri] |
| 17398 | 19th C views said elements survived abstractly in compounds, but also as 'material ingredients' [Scerri] |
| 17395 | Elements were ordered by equivalent weight; later by atomic weight; finally by atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17406 | Moseley, using X-rays, showed that atomic number ordered better than atomic weight [Scerri] |
| 17408 | Some suggested basing the new periodic table on isotopes, not elements [Scerri] |
| 17413 | Elements in the table are grouped by having the same number of outer-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17416 | Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics [Scerri] |
| 17417 | To explain the table, quantum mechanics still needs to explain order of shell filling [Scerri] |
| 17419 | Since 99.96% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, the periodic table hardly matters [Scerri] |
| 17414 | Pauli explained the electron shells, but not the lengths of the periods in the table [Scerri] |
| 17410 | Moseley showed the elements progress in units, and thereby clearly identified the gaps [Scerri] |
| 17412 | Elements are placed in the table by the number of positive charges - the atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17422 | The best classification needs the deepest and most general principles of the atoms [Scerri] |
| 6199 | Obligation does not rest on the existence of God, but on the autonomy of reason [Kant] |
| 1453 | We have to postulate something outside nature which makes happiness coincide with morality [Kant] |
| 1455 | Belief in justice requires belief in a place for justice (heaven), a time (eternity), and a cause (God) [Kant, by PG] |
| 6205 | To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant] |
| 6204 | Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant] |
| 6206 | From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant] |
| 6202 | In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant] |