6 ideas
| 2764 | Full coherence might involve consistency and mutual entailment of all propositions [Blanshard, by Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Blanshard says that in a fully coherent system there would not only be consistency, but every proposition would be entailed by the others, and no proposition would stand outside the system. | |
| From: report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], 2:265) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 8.1 | |
| A reaction: Hm. If a proposition is entailed by the others, then it is a necessary truth (given the others) which sounds deterministic. You could predict all the truths you had never encountered. See 1578:178 for quote. |
| 19080 | Coherence tests for truth without implying correspondence, so truth is not correspondence [Blanshard, by Young,JO] |
| Full Idea: Blanshard said that coherent justification leads to coherence truth. It might be said that coherence is a test for truth, but truth is correspondence. But coherence doesn't guarantee correspondence, and coherence is a test, so truth is not correspondence. | |
| From: report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], Ch.26) by James O. Young - The Coherence Theory of Truth §2.2 | |
| A reaction: [compression of Young's summary] Rescher (1973) says that Blanshard's argument depends on coherence being an infallible test for truth, which it isn't. |
| 2667 | A false object might give the same presentation as a true one [Arcesilaus, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Arcesilaus said that no presentation proceeding from a true object is such that a presentation proceeding from a false one might not also be of the same form. This is the one argument that has held the field down to the present day. | |
| From: report of Arcesilaus (fragments/reports [c.275 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.24.77 |
| 21236 | Instead of gravitational force, we now have a pervasive gravitational field [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Physics replaced the notion that bodies exert gravitational force on each other by the more effective picture that the bodies in the universe give rise to a pervasive gravitational field which exerts a force on each particle. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: This still uses the word 'force'. I sometimes get the impression that gravity is the curvature of space, but gravity needs more. Which direction along the curvature are particles attracted? The bottom line is the power of the bodies. |
| 21235 | The Schrödinger waves are just the maths of transforming energy values to positions [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Dirac showed that the Schrödinger waves were simply the mathematical quantities involved in transforming the description of a quantum based on its energy values to one based on possible values of its position. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: Does this eliminate actual physical 'waves' from the theory? |
| 21234 | Experiments show that fundamental particles of one type are identical [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: It is an established experimental fact ...that every single fundamental particle in the universe is the same and identical to all other particles of the same type. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: A loud groan is heard from the tomb of Leibniz. I'm unclear how experiments can establish this. If electrons have internal structure (which is not ruled out) then uniformity is highly unlikely. |