7 ideas
2572 | Logical truth seems much less likely to 'correspond to the facts' than factual truth does [Haack] |
Full Idea: It is surely less plausible to suppose that logical truth consists in correspondence to the facts than that 'factual' truth does. | |
From: Susan Haack (Philosophy of Logics [1978], 7.6) |
2570 | The same sentence could be true in one language and meaningless in another, so truth is language-relative [Haack] |
Full Idea: The definition of truth will have to be, Tarski argues, relative to a language, for one and the same sentence may be true in one language, and false or meaningless in another. | |
From: Susan Haack (Philosophy of Logics [1978], 7.5) |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
17402 | Mendeleev saw three principles in nature: matter, force and spirit (where the latter seems to be essence) [Mendeleev, by Scerri] |
Full Idea: Mendeleev rejected one unifying principles in favour of three basic components of nature: matter (substance), force (energy), and spirit (soul). 'Spirit' is said to be what we now mean by essentialism - what is irreducibly peculiar to the object. | |
From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' |
17399 | Elements don't survive in compounds, but the 'substance' of the element does [Mendeleev] |
Full Idea: Neither mercury as a metal nor oxygen as a gas is contained in mercury oxide; it only contains the substance of the elements, just as steam only contains the substance of ice. | |
From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870], I:23), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Nature' | |
A reaction: [1889 edn] Scerri glosses the word 'substance' as meaning essence. |
17400 | Mendeleev focused on abstract elements, not simple substances, so he got to their essence [Mendeleev, by Scerri] |
Full Idea: Because he was attempting to classify abstract elements, not simple substances, Mendeleev was not misled by nonessential chemical properties. | |
From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' | |
A reaction: I'm not fully clear about this, but I take it that Mendeleev stood back from the messy observations, and tried to see the underlying simpler principles. 'Simple substances' were ones that had not so far been decomposed. |
17401 | Mendeleev had a view of elements which allowed him to overlook some conflicting observations [Mendeleev] |
Full Idea: His view of elements allowed Mendeleev to maintain the validity of the periodic table even in instances where observational evidence seemed to point against it. | |
From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' | |
A reaction: Mendeleev seems to have focused on abstract essences of elements, rather than on the simplest substances they had so far managed to isolate. |