32 ideas
| 12104 | All ideas must be understood historically [Comte] |
| 12105 | Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte] |
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 12112 | Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena [Comte] |
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte] |
| 12106 | Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte] |
| 12114 | Science can drown in detail, so we need broad scientists (to keep out the metaphysicians) [Comte] |
| 12116 | Only positivist philosophy can terminate modern social crises [Comte] |
| 13134 | We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff] |
| 13124 | Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff] |
| 13117 | How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff] |
| 13116 | Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff] |
| 13118 | Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff] |
| 13125 | Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff] |
| 13126 | Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff] |
| 13130 | Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff] |
| 13131 | The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff] |
| 13123 | All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff] |
| 13115 | Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff] |
| 13119 | Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff] |
| 13135 | A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff] |
| 13129 | Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 12107 | Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte] |
| 12115 | Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 12113 | The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte] |
| 12110 | We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |