11 ideas
| 17082 | Paradox: why do you analyse if you know it, and how do you analyse if you don't? [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: The alleged paradox of analysis asserts that if one knew what was involved in the concept, one would not need the analysis; if one did not know what was involved in the concept, no analysis could be forthcoming. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of problem that seemed to bug Plato a lot. You certainly can't analyse something if you don't understand it, but it seems obvious that you can illuminatingly analyse something of which you have a reasonable understanding. |
| 8942 | Lukasiewicz's L3 logic has three truth-values, T, F and I (for 'indeterminate') [Lukasiewicz, by Fisher] |
| Full Idea: In response to Aristotle's sea-battle problem, Lukasiewicz proposed a three-valued logic that has come to be known as L3. In addition to the values true and false (T and F), there is a third truth-value, I, meaning 'indeterminate' or 'possible'. | |
| From: report of Jan Lukasiewicz (Elements of Mathematical Logic [1928], 7.I) by Jennifer Fisher - On the Philosophy of Logic | |
| A reaction: [He originated the idea in 1917] In what sense is the third value a 'truth' value? Is 'I don't care' a truth-value? Or 'none of the above'? His idea means that formalization doesn't collapse when things get obscure. You park a few propositions under I. |
| 17087 | The 'symmetry thesis' says explanation and prediction only differ pragmatically [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: The 'symmetry thesis' holds that there is only a pragmatic, or epistemic, but no logical, difference between explaining and predicting. …The only difference is in what the producer of the deduction knows just before the deduction is produced. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 4) | |
| A reaction: He cites Mill has holding this view. It seems elementary to me that I can explain something but not predict it, or predict it but not explain it. The latter case is just Humean habitual induction. |
| 17081 | Usually explanations just involve giving information, with no reference to the act of explanation [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: Plato, Aristotle, Mill and Hempel believed that an explanatory product can be characterized solely in terms of the kind of information it conveys, no reference to the act of explaining being required. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: Achinstein says it's about acts, because the same information could be an explanation, or a critique, or some other act. Ruben disagrees, and so do I. |
| 17092 | An explanation needs the world to have an appropriate structure [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: Objects or events in the world must really stand in some appropriate 'structural' relation before explanation is possible. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
| A reaction: An important point. These days people talk of 'dependence relations'. Some sort of structure to reality (mainly imposed by the direction of time and causation, I would have thought) is a prerequisite of finding a direction to explanation. |
| 17090 | Most explanations are just sentences, not arguments [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: Typically, full explanations are not arguments, but singular sentences, or conjunctions thereof. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 6) | |
| A reaction: This is mainly objecting to the claim that explanations are deductions from laws and facts. I agree with Ruben. Explanations are just information, I think. Of course, Aristotle's demonstrations are arguments. |
| 17094 | The causal theory of explanation neglects determinations which are not causal [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: The fault of the causal theory of explanation was to overlook the fact that there are more ways of making something what it is or being responsible for it than by causing it. …Causation is a particular type of determinative relation. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
| A reaction: The only thing I can think of is that certain abstract facts are 'determined' by other abtract facts, without being 'caused' by them. A useful word. |
| 17088 | Reducing one science to another is often said to be the perfect explanation [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: The reduction of one science to another has often been taken as paradigmatic of explanation. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
| A reaction: It seems fairly obvious that the total reduction of chemistry to physics would involve the elimination of all the current concepts of chemistry. Could this possibly enhance our understanding of chemistry? I would have thought not. |
| 17089 | Facts explain facts, but only if they are conceptualised or named appropriately [Ruben] |
| Full Idea: Facts explain facts only when the features and the individuals the facts are about are appropriately conceptualized or named. | |
| From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
| A reaction: He has a nice example that 'Cicero's speeches stop in 43 BCE' isn't explained by 'Tully died then', if you don't know that Cicero was Tully. Ruben is not defending pragmatic explanation, but to this extent he must be right. |
| 5845 | Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon] |
| Full Idea: Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'. | |
| From: Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue |
| 5833 | Education is the greatest of human goods [Xenophon] |
| Full Idea: Education is the greatest of human goods. | |
| From: Xenophon (Apology of Socrates [c.392 BCE], 22) | |
| A reaction: Of course, one might ask what education is for, and arrive at a greater good. If you ask what is the greatest good which a society can provide for you, or which you can give to your children, this seems to me a good answer. |