Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Two Problems of Epistemology', 'Exigency to Exist in Essences' and 'Getting Causes from Powers'

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7 ideas

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: Smoking disposes towards cancer, and has its way in many instances. The existence of some smokers without cancer, however, does nothing to falsify this dispositional claim.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.5)
     A reaction: Indeed, falsification by one instance will only work against absolute and universal claims, and nature contains hardly any of those.
Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
     Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
     From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
     A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: If there were necessity to be found in causation, then the problem of induction would seem to be dissolved. The future would indeed proceed like the past if it were for all time necessitated what caused what.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.14)
     A reaction: My working hypothesis is that the essences of nature necessitate their interactions, and that the problem of induction is solved in that way. We can allow causation to be a process in this action, the transmitter of necessities. Or it could drop out.
The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: There is indeed natural uniformity in the negative charge of electrons, but the reason for this is that it is an essential property of being an electron that something be negatively charged. It would not be an electron otherwise.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6)
     A reaction: See Idea 14570 for the first part of this thought. This doesn't feel right. The behaviour of gravity according to the inverse square law, or General Relativity, seems to be a uniformity that extends beyond the essences of the ingredients.
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: The uniformity of nature principle, if it means absolute regularity, is simply false; not everyone who smokes gets cancer, not all bread nourishes. Nature is not strictly uniform, even if some things tend to be the case.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6)
     A reaction: Something wrong here. The examples are high-level and complex. When someone survives smoking, or bread fails to nourish, we don't infer a disruption of uniform nature, we infer some other uniformity that has intervened. Are there natural kinds?
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: It is tempting to think that entailment is the only adequate kind of explanation because of the idea that if A does not entail B, it must have fallen short of (fully) explaining it.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.5)
     A reaction: Yes. One might dream of saying 'this, and only this, necessitates what happened', but it is doubtful whether causes necessitate effects. It is a quirky view to think that every car accident is necessitated. Nuclear explosions block most events.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: Knowing the structure that something has does not in itself causally explain that thing's behaviour unless we also know what sorts of behaviour a thing of that structure can cause.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2)
     A reaction: I agree with this. If you focus on the lowest possible levels of causal explanation, I can see only powers. Whatever you come up with, it had better be something active. Geometry never started any bonfires.