Corpus evidence — top 10 passages

Most-relevant passages from the entire indexed corpus (67,286 paragraph chunks across YouTube transcripts, PubMed, arXiv, archive.org, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, OpenAlex, and more) ranked by semantic similarity (bge-small-en-v1.5).

1. 01 · gutenberg0.697

   3. But, perhaps, we may be too partial to ourselves in placing the fault originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of them. IT IS A HARD THING TO SUPPOSE THAT RIGHT DEDUCTIONS FROM TRUE PRINCIPLES SHOULD EVER END IN CONSEQUENCES WHICH CANNOT BE MAINTAINED or made consistent. We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the sons of men than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge which he had placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to the wonted indulgent methods of Providence, which, whatever appetites it may have implanted in t…

   gutenberg/PG-4723-a-treatise-concerning-the-principles-of-human-knowledge/PG-4723.txt

2. 02 · gutenberg0.694

   Would the idea ever have occurred to us to doubt this absolute value of our knowledge if philosophy had not shown us what contradictions our speculation meets, what dead-locks it ends in? But these difficulties and contradictions all arise from trying to apply the usual forms of our thought to objects with which our industry has nothing to do, and for which, therefore, our molds are not made. Intellectual knowledge, in so far as it relates to a certain aspect of inert matter, ought, on the contrary, to give us a faithful imprint of it, having been stereotyped on this particular object. It beco…

   gutenberg/PG-26163-creative-evolution/PG-26163.txt

3. 03 · blog0.689

   For example, it seemed unsatisfactory to dismiss the views of sick and mad people simply on the grounds that they are in the minority, thereby considering as true what appears to the greater number of people. Similarly, Aristotle reports that these earlier thinkers looked at the ways in which things appear differently to different kinds of living beings, and to one person at different times (4.5, 1099b1–11). In Metaphysics 4.4, Aristotle notes that some people consider it possible for the same thing to be and not to be, and for someone to believe so (he refers to a range of positions, all of w…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/ancient-skepticism.md

4. 04 · blog0.685

   By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; this is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains. (8.1; Hume 1748, 72) Of course, Hume and many of those who have followed him have been attempting to do something rather more than to offer a theory of ability. Hume’s intent was to show that disputes over ‘question of liberty and necessity, the most contentious question of metaphysics’ ha…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/abilities.md

5. 05 · gutenberg0.682

   It is a fault we may remark in most disputes, that, as truth is the mean between the two opinions that are upheld, each disputant departs from it in proportion to the degree in which he possesses the spirit of contradiction. But the error of those who leant too much to the side of doubt, was not followed for any length of time, and that of the opposite party has been to some extent corrected by the doctrine that the senses are deceitful in many instances. Nevertheless, I do not know that this error was wholly removed by showing that certitude is not in the senses, but in the understanding alon…

   gutenberg/PG-4391-selections-from-the-principles-of-philosophy/PG-4391.txt

6. 06 · blog0.679

   It would be very difficult to describe in detail all the twists and turns of Chisholm’s constantly evolving views on this topic. Instead, we will focus on some of the more persistent and characteristically Chisholmian points. Suppose a certain person in fact did not go to Boston this morning, but suppose it seems that he could have done so. We want to say that though he stayed in Providence, he could have done otherwise — he could have gone to Boston. Surely the statement that he could have done otherwise does not mean merely that it is logically possible that he did otherwise, for superhuman …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/roderick-chisholm.md

7. 07 · blog0.679

   So long as we think that what has always and alone to be decided is whether a certain action was done freely or was not, we get nowhere: but so soon as we turn instead to the numerous other adverbs used in the same connexion (“accidentally”, “unwillingly”, “inadvertently”, &c.), things become easier, and we come to see that no concluding inference of the form “Ergo, it was done freely (or not freely)” is required. Like freedom, truth is a bare minimum or an illusory ideal (the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about, say, the battle of Waterloo or the Primavera ). (1950a: 130; …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/john-langshaw-austin.md

8. 08 · archive0.677

   *AB:* That's absolutely true. I've wondered about that all my life. There are time when, in effect, you can do no wrong, and there are other periods of time when you can do no right, no matter what you do.

   archive/TerenceMckennaWithArtBell/info.md

9. 09 · blog0.677

   The first phrase of the Rede directs us to be aware of results of our actions projected not only in time, as long-term personal outcomes, but in space - to consider how actions may effect our families, co-workers, community, and the life of the Earth as a whole, and to take those projections into account in our decisions. But, like the rest of the Rede, "an it harm none" cannot be followed unthinkingly. It is simply impossible for creatures who eat to harm none. Any refusal to decide or act for fear of harming someone is also a decision and an action, and will create results of some kind. When…

   blog/www-sacred-texts-com/internet-book-of-shadows-exegesis-on-the-wiccan-rede-ju-internet-sacred-text-arc.md

10. 10 · blog0.673

    After all, Locke himself diagnosed the difficulty: Body as far as we can conceive being able only to strike and affect body; and Motion, according to the utmost reach of our Ideas , being able to produce nothing but Motion, so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the Idea of a Colour, or Sound, we are fain to quit our Reason, go beyond our Ideas , and attribute it wholly to the good Pleasure of our Maker. (Locke 1975, 541; Essay 4.3.6) And, when Descartes was pressed by Elizabeth as to how mind and body interact, [ 4 ] she rightly regarded his answers as unsatisfactory. The ba…

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/george-berkeley.md