23 ideas
| 3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], II.3) |
| 3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Once we move beyond investigating correlations between observables the question of what does or should guide our choice between alternative explanatory accounts becomes problematic. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], IX.2) |
| 3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We are only justified in regarding scientific practice as the very paradigm of rationality if we can justify the claim that scientific change is rationally explicable. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.2) |
| 3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: The critics of positivism attacked the conception of a dichotomy between theory and observation. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4) |
| 3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: For positivists it was taken that while theory change meant change in the meaning of theoretical terms, the meaning of observational terms was invariant under theory change. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4) |
| 3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: If a theory is a better approximation to the truth, then it is likely that it will have greater predictive power. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VIII.8) |
| 3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We cannot explicate a useful notion of verisimilitude in terms of the number of truths and the number of falsehoods generated by a theory, because they are infinite. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.4) |
| 18935 | Semantic theory should specify when an act of naming is successful [Sawyer] |
| Full Idea: A semantic theory of names should deliver a specification of the conditions under which a name names an individual, and hence a specification of the conditions under which a name is empty. | |
| From: Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: Naming can be private, like naming my car 'Bertrand', but never tell anyone. I like Plato's remark that names are 'tools'. Do we specify conditions for successful spanner-usage? The first step must be individuation, preparatory to naming. |
| 18945 | Millians say a name just means its object [Sawyer] |
| Full Idea: The Millian view of direct reference says that the meaning of a name is the object named. | |
| From: Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 4) | |
| A reaction: Any theory that says meaning somehow is features of the physical world strikes me as totally misguided. Napoleon is a man, so he can't be part of a sentence. He delegates that job to words (such as 'Napoleon'). |
| 18934 | Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer] |
| Full Idea: Some empty names sentences can be understood, so appear to be meaningful ('Pegasus was sired by Poseidon'), ...some appear to be co-referential ('Santa Claus'/'Father Christmas'), and some appear to be straightforwardly true ('Pegasus doesn't exist'). | |
| From: Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: Hang on to this, when the logicians arrive and start telling you that your talk of empty names is vacuous, because there is no object in the 'domain' to which a predicate can be attached. Meaning, reference and truth are the issues around empty names. |
| 18938 | Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer] |
| Full Idea: In Frege's account sentences such as 'Pegasus does not exist' will be neither true nor false, since the truth-value of a sentence is its referent, and the referent of a complex expression is determined by the referent of its parts. | |
| From: Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: We can keep the idea of 'sense', which is very useful for dealing with empty names, but tweak his account of truth-values to evade this problem. I'm thinking that meaning is compositional, but truth-value isn't. |
| 18947 | Definites descriptions don't solve the empty names problem, because the properties may not exist [Sawyer] |
| Full Idea: If it were possible for a definite description to be empty - not in the sense of there being no object that satisfies it, but of there being no set of properties it refers to - the problem of empty names would not have been solved. | |
| From: Sarah Sawyer (Empty Names [2012], 5) | |
| A reaction: Swoyer is thinking of properties like 'is a unicorn', which are clearly just as vulnerable to being empty as 'the unicorn' was. It seems unlikely that 'horse', 'white' and 'horn' would be empty. |
| 3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: A necessary truth is 'de re' if its necessity arises from the way the world is. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VII.6) |
| 3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We cannot determine what someone's beliefs are independently of assessing to some extent the truth or falsity of the beliefs. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], X.4) |
| 3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: The challenge of incommensurability can be met once it is realised that in comparing theories the notions of truth and reference are more important than that of meaning. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.6) |
| 3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: A full grasp of the concept '…is yellow' involves coming to accept as true bits of theory; that is, generalisations involving the term 'yellow'. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], II.2) |
| 3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: According to Feyerabend all theories are born falsified, because no theory has ever been totally free of anomalies. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: When scientists observed the motion of Uranus, they did not give up on Newtonian mechanics. Instead they posited the existence of Neptune. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Whether to reject an anomaly has to be decided on the basis of the availability of a rival theory, and on the basis of the positive evidence for the theory in question. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Why should it be so important to distinguish between theories that are scientific and those that are not? | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], IV.3) |
| 3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: If theories are genuinely incommensurable why should I be faced with the problem of choosing between them? Why not believe them all? | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VII.1) |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: To explain an action as an action is to show that it is rational. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], X.2) |