display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
2 ideas
| 4800 | Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction. | |
| From: report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1 | |
| A reaction: The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms. |
| 8656 | The laws of number are not laws of nature, but are laws of the laws of nature [Frege] |
| Full Idea: The laws of number are not applicable to external things, and are not laws of nature, but they are applicable to judgements of external things: they are laws of the laws of nature. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884], §87) | |
| A reaction: We seem to be somewhere between pythagoreanism and 'the mind of God'. I feel fairly strongly that we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope here. The laws of nature 'emerge' from nature, and high-level abstractions emerge with them. |