Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Douglas Lackey, Oscar Wilde and Reiss,J/Spreger,J

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13 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity

22353	One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: One conception of objectivity is that the facts are 'out there', and it is the task of scientists to discover, analyze and sytematize them. 'Objective' is a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2)
	A reaction: This seems to describe truth, rather than objectivity. You can establish accurate facts by subjective means. You can be fairly objective but miss the facts. Objectivity is a mode of thought, not a link to reality.

22356	An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: Sense experience is necessarily perspectival, so to the extent to which scientific theories are to track the absolute conception [of reality], they must describe a world different from sense experience.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
	A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and interesting point. Even when you are looking at a tree, to grasp its full reality you probably need to close your eyes (which is bad news for artists).

22359	Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: There may be values involved in the choice of a research problem, the gathering of evidence, the acceptance of a theory, and the application of results. ...The first and fourth do involve values, but what of the second and third?
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
	A reaction: [compressed] My own view is that the danger of hidden distorting values has to be recognised, but it is then possible, by honest self-criticism, to reduce them to near zero. Sociological enquiry is different, of course.

22360	The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: According to the Value-Free Ideal, scientific objectivity is characterised by absence of contextual values and by exclusive commitment to epistemic values in scientific reasoning.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
	A reaction: This seems appealing, because it concedes that we cannot be value-free, without suggesting that we are unavoidably swamped by values. The obvious question is whether the two types of value can be sharply distinguished.

22362	Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: Three components of value-free science are Impartiality (appraising theories only by epistemic scientific standards), Neutrality (the theories make no value statements), and Autonomy (the theory is motivated only by science).
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3)
	A reaction: [They are summarising Hugh Lacey, 1999, 2002] I'm not sure why the third criterion matters, if the first two are met. If a tobacco company commissions research on cigarettes, that doesn't necessarily make the findings false or prejudiced.

22364	Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: Thermometers assume the length of the fluid or gas is a function of temperature, and different substances yield different results. It was decided that different thermometers using the same substance should match, and air was the best, but not perfect.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1)
	A reaction: [summarising Hasok Chang's research] This is a salutary warning that instruments do not necessarily solve the problem of objectivity, though thermometers do seem to be impersonal, and offer relative accuracy (i.e. ranking temperatures). Cf breathalysers.

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 5. Paradoxes in Set Theory / b. Cantor's paradox

21554	Sets always exceed terms, so all the sets must exceed all the sets [Lackey]
	Full Idea: Cantor proved that the number of sets in a collection of terms is larger than the number of terms. Hence Cantor's Paradox says the number of sets in the collection of all sets must be larger than the number of sets in the collection of all sets.
	From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127)
	A reaction: The sets must count as terms in the next iteration, but that is a normal application of the Power Set axiom.

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 5. Paradoxes in Set Theory / c. Burali-Forti's paradox

21553	It seems that the ordinal number of all the ordinals must be bigger than itself [Lackey]
	Full Idea: The ordinal series is well-ordered and thus has an ordinal number, and a series of ordinals to a given ordinal exceeds that ordinal by 1. So the series of all ordinals has an ordinal number that exceeds its own ordinal number by 1.
	From: Douglas Lackey (Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' [1973], p.127)
	A reaction: Formulated by Burali-Forti in 1897.

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment

22357	The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: The 'experimenter's regress' says that to know whether a result is correct, one needs to know whether the apparatus is reliable. But one doesn't know whether the apparatus is reliable unless one knows that it produces correct results ...and so on.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
	A reaction: [H. Collins (1985), a sociologist] I take this to be a case of the triumphant discovery of a vicious circle which destroys all knowledge turning out to be a benign circle. We build up a coherent relationship between reliable results and good apparatus.

14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem

22365	The Bayesian approach is explicitly subjective about probabilities [Reiss/Sprenger]
	Full Idea: The Bayesian approach is outspokenly subjective: probability is used for quantifying a scientist's subjective degree of belief in a particular hypothesis. ...It just provides sound rules for learning from experience.
	From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.2)

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 6. Value of Art

7276	All art is quite useless [Wilde]
	Full Idea: All art is quite useless.
	From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891])
	A reaction: Echoes Kant's thought that art is 'purposive without purpose'. Although I find Wilde's claims that morality has nothing to do with art to be naïve, I find this remark sympathetic. Art may play with moral feelings, but is unlikely to affect actions.

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

7274	Books are only well or badly written, not moral or immoral [Wilde]
	Full Idea: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
	From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891])
	A reaction: This is simply false. Novels that are viciously (or subtly) racist, sexist, homophobic, or egotistical can obviously be immoral. I could write a nasty story about Oscar Wilde. It might, though, be very well written. If life is moral, so are novels.

7275	Having ethical sympathies is a bad mannerism of style in an artist [Wilde]
	Full Idea: No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
	From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891])
	A reaction: This has a Nietzschean suggestion that the artist is 'beyond good and evil', and operates on some higher level of values, which in Wilde's case seem to be purely aesthetic. You can't justify a callous murder by executing it beautifully.