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Single Idea 12669

[filed under theme 14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science ]

Full Idea

The primary aim of science is to explain what happens, not just to describe it.

Gist of Idea

Science aims to explain things, not just describe them

Source

Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2)

Book Ref

Ellis,Brian: 'The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism' [Acument 2009], p.25

A Reaction

This I take to be a good motto for scientific essentialism. Any scientist who is happy with anything less than explanation is a mere journeyman, a servant in the kitchens of the great house of science.

The 107 ideas from Brian Ellis

6616 Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis]
6612 Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis]
6614 A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis]
6615 A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis]
6613 The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis]
23781 Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE]
12665 I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis]
12667 Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis]
12666 We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis]
12668 Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis]
12669 Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis]
12670 A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis]
12673 Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis]
12672 Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis]
12671 I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis]
12674 Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis]
12675 Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis]
12680 Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis]
12682 Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis]
12684 Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis]
12676 Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis]
12679 A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis]
12683 Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
12681 There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
12685 Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis]
12686 Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis]
12687 Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis]
12688 Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis]
12690 The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis]
12689 Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis]
5445 Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis]
5442 For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis]
5443 Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis]
5444 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis]
5448 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis]
5447 Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis]
5446 For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis]
5460 Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis]
5459 Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis]
5461 The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis]
5453 Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis]
5457 Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG]
5462 Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis]
5456 Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis]
5458 Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis]
5469 The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis]
5468 Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG]
5466 Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis]
5464 For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis]
5463 Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis]
5473 The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis]
5474 Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis]
5475 We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis]
5472 Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis]
5471 Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis]
5480 The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis]
5476 Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis]
5478 Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis]
5479 Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis]
5477 One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis]
5483 Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis]
5481 Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis]
5482 Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis]
5485 Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis]
5488 Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis]
5489 Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis]
5490 Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis]
5484 Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis]
5486 Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis]
5491 A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis]
5487 Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis]
18398 Space, time, and some other basics, are not causal powers [Ellis]
13568 Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis]
13567 Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis]
13569 To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis]
13571 Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis]
13570 Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis]
13566 A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis]
13572 There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis]
13573 Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis]
13574 Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis]
13575 If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis]
13576 Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis]
13577 Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis]
13578 The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis]
13579 What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis]
13581 Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis]
13580 Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis]
13582 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis]
13583 There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis]
13584 The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis]
13585 The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis]
13586 Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis]
13587 There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis]
13596 A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis]
13595 Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis]
13594 The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis]
13597 Good explanations unify [Ellis]
13599 Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis]
13598 Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis]
13600 The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis]
13601 Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis]
13604 Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis]
13603 A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis]
9436 The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis]
13606 Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis]
13607 If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis]