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Single Idea 7459

[filed under theme 14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation ]

Full Idea

Mathematics is the model for reasoning about necessary truths, but jurisprudence must be our model when we deliberate about contingencies.

Clarification

'Jurisprudence' studies the relationship between law and morality

Gist of Idea

Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths

Source

Ian Hacking (The Emergence of Probability [1975], Ch.10)

Book Ref

Hacking,Ian: 'The Emergence of Probability' [CUP 1975], p.86

A Reaction

Interesting. Certainly huge thinking, especially since the Romans, has gone into the law, and creating rules of evidence. Maybe all philosophers should study law and mathematics?

The 19 ideas from Ian Hacking

7447 Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking]
7448 Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking]
7459 Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking]
7449 Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking]
7450 In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking]
7451 Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking]
7452 An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG]
7454 Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking]
13833 'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction [Hacking]
13834 Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C' [Hacking]
13835 Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with [Hacking]
13837 With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically [Hacking]
13838 A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking]
13839 Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers [Hacking]
13843 If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it [Hacking]
13840 First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem [Hacking]
13844 A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers [Hacking]
13842 Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds [Hacking]
13845 The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking]