Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for David Fair, Ernst Mach and Karl Weierstrass

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism

15873	Laws of nature are just records of regularities and correlations, with concepts to make recording them easier [Mach, by Harré]
	Full Idea: For Mach, the laws of nature are simply the compendious record of sensory regularities, correlations of elements. Any additional concepts are no more than symbols or devices for the convenient recording of general sensory patterns.
	From: report of Ernst Mach (Popular Scientific Lectures [1894], pp.201-5) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
	A reaction: Mach is the high priest of scientific positivism, which is really just hard-line empiricism.

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / k. Infinitesimals

18086	Weierstrass eliminated talk of infinitesimals [Weierstrass, by Kitcher]
	Full Idea: Weierstrass effectively eliminated the infinitesimalist language of his predecessors.
	From: report of Karl Weierstrass (works [1855]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.6

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / l. Limits

18092	Weierstrass made limits central, but the existence of limits still needed to be proved [Weierstrass, by Bostock]
	Full Idea: After Weierstrass had stressed the importance of limits, one now needed to be able to prove the existence of such limits.
	From: report of Karl Weierstrass (works [1855]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.4
	A reaction: The solution to this is found in work on series (going back to Cauchy), and on Dedekind's cuts.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation

8326	Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
	Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
	A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.

10379	Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
	A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.