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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Scientific Essentialism' and 'works'

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4 ideas

14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis]
     Full Idea: If one believes, as Hume did, that all events are loose and separate, then the problem of induction is probably insoluble.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 8.09)
     A reaction: This points to the essentialist solution of induction - that we can genuinely derive inductive truths if we can inductively identify the essences which give rise to the necessities of further cases. I take that to be a correct account.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
Good explanations unify [Ellis]
     Full Idea: An acceptable explanation must have some unifying power.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11)
     A reaction: There is a tension here, between the particular and the general. If I say 'why did the building collapse' and you say 'gravity', you have certainly got a unifying explanation, but we want something narrower.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Explanations of particular events in history, geology, or evolution, are causal explanations, requiring belief in some causal mechanisms. But they are not essentialist explanations because they do not seek to lay bare the essential structure of anything.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 4.05)
     A reaction: The explanation might be two-stage, as when we explain an earthquake by a plate boundary rupture, which is in turn explained by a theory of plate techtonics. The relationship between mechanistic and essentialist explanation needs study.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There can be no essentialist explanations constructed in any field where the subject matter is not naturally divided into kinds.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: A crux. I like individual essences, such as the character of a particular person. However, Ellis may be right, since while we may identify an individual essence as the source of a behaviour, we may not then be able to give any 'explanation'.