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Full Idea
Alongside the passion for simplification …is the passion for distinguishing; it is the passion to be acquainted with the parts rather than to comprehend the whole.
Gist of Idea
We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole
Source
William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.22)
Book Ref
James,William: 'Selected Writings of William James', ed/tr. Bird,Graham [Everyman 1995], p.22
A Reaction
As I child I dismantled almost every toy I was given. This seems to be the motivation for a lot of analytic philosophy, but Aristotle also tended to think that way.
Related Ideas
Idea 22644 Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James]
Idea 14165 Analysis falsifies, if when the parts are broken down they are not equivalent to their sum [Russell]
| 16619 | We observe qualities, and use 'induction' to refer to the substances lying under them [Gassendi] |
| 15308 | Science is the reduction of diverse forces and powers to a smaller number that explain them [Kant] |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| 6552 | You can only explain the qualities of large objects using entities which lack those qualities [Heisenberg] |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| 17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
| 15310 | Solidity comes from the power of repulsion, and shape from the power of attraction [Harré/Madden] |
| 12315 | We can explain by showing constitution, as well as showing causes [Stanford] |
| 17088 | Reducing one science to another is often said to be the perfect explanation [Ruben] |
| 2396 | Reductive explanation is not the be-all and the end-all of explanation [Chalmers] |
| 7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
| 15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
| 13926 | Best explanations, especially natural ones, need grounding, notably by persistent objects [Haslanger] |
| 11053 | Explanatory reduction is stronger than ontological reduction [Hanna] |