70 ideas
| 19250 | Everything interesting should be recorded, with records that can be rearranged [Peirce] |
| 19228 | Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence [Peirce] |
| 19241 | An idea on its own isn't an idea, because they are continuous systems [Peirce] |
| 19227 | Philosophy is a search for real truth [Peirce] |
| 19218 | Metaphysics is pointless without exact modern logic [Peirce] |
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| 19229 | Metaphysics is the science of both experience, and its general laws and types [Peirce] |
| 19219 | Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard [Peirce] |
| 19231 | Metaphysics is turning into logic, and logic is becoming mathematics [Peirce] |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| 19247 | The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce] |
| 19246 | 'Holding for true' is either practical commitment, or provisional theory [Peirce] |
| 19237 | Deduction is true when the premises facts necessarily make the conclusion fact true [Peirce] |
| 19256 | Our research always hopes that reality embodies the logic we are employing [Peirce] |
| 19238 | The logic of relatives relies on objects built of any relations (rather than on classes) [Peirce] |
| 19226 | We now know that mathematics only studies hypotheses, not facts [Peirce] |
| 19240 | Realism is the belief that there is something in the being of things corresponding to our reasoning [Peirce] |
| 19239 | There may be no reality; it's just our one desperate hope of knowing anything [Peirce] |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| 19252 | Objective chance is the property of a distribution [Peirce] |
| 19232 | In ordinary language a conditional statement assumes that the antecedent is true [Peirce] |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| 19223 | We act on 'full belief' in a crisis, but 'opinion' only operates for trivial actions [Peirce] |
| 19253 | We talk of 'association by resemblance' but that is wrong: the association constitutes the resemblance [Peirce] |
| 19224 | Scientists will give up any conclusion, if experience opposes it [Peirce] |
| 19243 | If each inference slightly reduced our certainty, science would soon be in trouble [Peirce] |
| 19225 | I classify science by level of abstraction; principles derive from above, and data from below [Peirce] |
| 19234 | 'Induction' doesn't capture Greek 'epagoge', which is singulars in a mass producing the general [Peirce] |
| 19235 | How does induction get started? [Peirce] |
| 19236 | Induction can never prove that laws have no exceptions [Peirce] |
| 19251 | The worst fallacy in induction is generalising one recondite property from a sample [Peirce] |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| 19222 | Men often answer inner 'whys' by treating unconscious instincts as if they were reasons [Peirce] |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| 19220 | We may think animals reason very little, but they hardly ever make mistakes! [Peirce] |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| 19255 | Generalisation is the great law of mind [Peirce] |
| 19242 | Generalization is the true end of life [Peirce] |
| 19249 | 'Know yourself' is not introspection; it is grasping how others see you [Peirce] |
| 19257 | Whatever is First must be sentient [Peirce] |
| 19248 | Reasoning involves observation, experiment, and habituation [Peirce] |
| 19221 | Everybody overrates their own reasoning, so it is clearly superficial [Peirce] |
| 19233 | Indexicals are unusual words, because they stimulate the hearer to look around [Peirce] |
| 19230 | People should follow what lies before them, and is within their power [Peirce] |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| 19245 | We are not inspired by other people's knowledge; a sense of our ignorance motivates study [Peirce] |
| 19244 | Chemists rely on a single experiment to establish a fact; repetition is pointless [Peirce] |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 19254 | Our laws of nature may be the result of evolution [Peirce] |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |