21 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
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] |
15642 | If kinds depend only on what can be observed, many underlying essences might produce the same kind [Eagle] |
15645 | Nominal essence are the observable properties of things [Eagle] |
15643 | Nominal essence mistakenly gives equal weight to all underlying properties that produce appearances [Eagle] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
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] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
15641 | Kinds are fixed by the essential properties of things - the properties that make it that kind of thing [Eagle] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
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] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |