display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Sciences differ from common sense only in the degree of methodological sophistication. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.129) | |
| A reaction: Science is normal thinking about the world, but it is teamwork, with the bar set very high. |
| 16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Induction is essentially only more of the same: animal expectation or habit formation. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
| A reaction: My working definition of induction is 'learning from experience', but that doesn't disagree with Quine. Lipton has a richer account of different types of induction. Quine's point is that it rests on resemblance. |
| 16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Induction expresses our hopes that similar causes will have similar effects. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125) | |
| A reaction: Some top philosophers are also top teachers, and Quine was one of them, in his writings. He boils it down for the layman. Once again, he is pointing to the fundamental role of the similarity relation. |
| 16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
| Full Idea: What makes Goodman's example a puzzle is the dubious scientific standing of a general notion of similarity, or of kind. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116) | |
| A reaction: Illuminating. It might be best expressed as revealing a problem with sortal terms, as employed by Geach, or by Wiggins. Grue is a bit silly, but sortals are subject to convention and culture. 'Natural' properties seem needed. |
| 17481 | Nuclear charge (plus laws) explains electron structure and spectrum, but not vice versa [Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Given relevant laws of nature (quantum mechanics, the exclusion principle) nuclear charge determines and explains electronic structure and spectroscopic behaviour, but not vice versa. | |
| From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
| A reaction: I argue that the first necessary condition for essentialism is a direction of explanation, and here we seem to have one. |
| 14790 | 'Abduction' is beginning a hypothesis, particularly if it includes preference of one explanation over others [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The first starting of a hypothesis and the entertaining of it …is an inferential step which I propose to call 'abduction'. This will include a preference for any one hypothesis over others which would equally explain the facts. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Abduction and Induction [1901], I) | |
| A reaction: I take there to be no more important function within human thought than the procedure by which we give preference to one particular explanation. It only makes sense, I think, if we take it as part of a coherence theory of justification. |
| 14791 | Abduction involves original suggestions, and not just the testing involved in induction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: It is of the nature of abduction to involve an original suggestion; while typical induction has no originality in it, but only tests a suggestion already made. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Abduction and Induction [1901], I) | |
| A reaction: Peirce's 'abduction' is not, then, just the choice of a best explanation. He came up with the idea because he was keen to capture the creative and imaginative character of rational thought. |