43 ideas
| 22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
| 3600 | Slow and accurate thought makes the greatest progress [Descartes] |
| 22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
| 3601 | Most things in human life seem vain and useless [Descartes] |
| 3602 | Almost every daft idea has been expressed by some philosopher [Descartes] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
| 3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
| 18933 | Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 3605 | We can believe a thing without knowing we believe it [Descartes] |
| 1583 | In morals Descartes accepts the conventional, but rejects it in epistemology [Roochnik on Descartes] |
| 3607 | In thinking everything else false, my own existence remains totally certain [Descartes] |
| 3617 | I aim to find the principles and causes of everything, using the seeds within my mind [Descartes] |
| 3611 | Understanding, rather than imagination or senses, gives knowledge [Descartes] |
| 3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
| 3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 3618 | Only experiments can settle disagreements between rival explanations [Descartes] |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [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] |
| 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] |
| 3615 | Little reason is needed to speak, so animals have no reason at all [Descartes] |
| 3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
| 3608 | I can deny my body and the world, but not my own existence [Descartes] |
| 3613 | Reason is universal in its responses, but a physical machine is constrained by its organs [Descartes] |
| 3616 | The soul must unite with the body to have appetites and sensations [Descartes] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 3614 | A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes] |
| 9866 | Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato] |
| 5864 | Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 1581 | Greeks elevate virtues enormously, but never explain them [Descartes] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 16686 | God has established laws throughout nature, and implanted ideas of them within us [Descartes] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |