more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
A scientific subject will possess more accuracy (i.e. simplicity) the more that it is about conceptually prior and simpler things, and so it will be more accurate without than with magnitude being involved, and above all being without movement.
Gist of Idea
Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement
Source
Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a10)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Metaphysics', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,Hugh [Penguin 1998], p.399
A Reaction
Aristotle is especially concerned to show how we can achieve accuracy, even while abstracting away from the details of the objects we are studying. Frege should have studied Aristotle more closely.
| 9791 | Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement [Aristotle] |
| 22746 | If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 10500 | No one denies that a line has width, but we can just attend to its length [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| 22591 | We know perfection when we see what is imperfect [Murdoch] |
| 13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 18075 | Idealisation trades off accuracy for simplicity, in varying degrees [Kitcher] |
| 18206 | Science idealises the earth's surface, the oceans, continuities, and liquids [Maddy] |