display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Explanations must cite generalisations. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.13) | |
| A reaction: I'm uneasy about this. Presumably some events have a unique explanation - a unique mechanism, perhaps. Language is inescapably general in its nature - which I take to be Aristotle's reason for agreeing the Sider. [Sider adds mechanisms on p.159] |
| 17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
| A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Ultimate explanations always terminate in the citation of entities; but since a mere list of entities is so unstructured, these 'explanations' cannot be systematized with detailed general laws, patterns, or mechanisms. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: We just need to distinguish between ultimate ontology and ultimate explanations. I think explanations peter out at the point where we descend below the mechanisms. Patterns or laws don't explain on their own. Causal mechanisms are the thing. |