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2 ideas
| 4958 | Identities like 'heat is molecule motion' are necessary (in the highest degree), not contingent [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: I hold that characteristic theoretical identifications like 'heat is the motion of molecules', are not contingent truths but necessary truths, and I don't just mean physically necessary, but necessary in the highest degree. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2) | |
| A reaction: This helps to keep epistemology and ontology separate. The contingency was in the epistemology. That the identity is 'physically necessary' seems obvious; that it is necessary 'in the highest degrees' implies an essentialist view of nature. |
| 8222 | Concepts are superior because they make us more aware, and change our thinking [Deleuze/Guattari] |
| Full Idea: If one concept is 'better' than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it brings forth an Event that surveys (survole) us. | |
| From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: I don't get much of that, but it is certainly in tune with the Kuhn/Feyerabend idea that what science can generate is fresh visions, rather than precisely expanded truths. Personally I consider it dangerous nonsense, but I thought I ought to pass it on. |