display all the ideas for this combination of texts
11 ideas
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| Full Idea: What is the use of being a genius, unless with the same scientific evidence as other men, one can reach more truth than they? | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.40) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at Clifford's famous principle. He isn't actually contraverting the principle, but it is a nice point about evidence. Simple empiricists think detectives only have to stare at the evidence and the solution creates itself. |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
| Full Idea: Each tester of the truth of a theory …acts as if it were true, and expects the result to disappoint him if his assumption is false. The longer disappointment is delayed, the stronger grows his faith in his theory. | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.42) | |
| A reaction: This is almost exactly Popper's falsificationist proposal for science, which interestingly shows the close relationship of his view to pragmatism. Believe it as long as it is still working. |
| 22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
| Full Idea: That nature will follow tomorrow the same laws that she follows today is a truth which no man can know; but in the interests of cognition as well as of action we must postulate or assume it. | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.39) | |
| A reaction: The stability of nature is something to be assessed, not something taken for granted. If you arrive in a new city and it all seems quiet, you keep your fingers crossed and treat it as stable. But revolution or coup could be just round the corner. |
| 22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
| Full Idea: The absurd abstraction of an intellect verbally formulating all its evidence and carefully estimating the probability thereof solely by the size of a vulgar fraction, is as ideally inept as it is practically impossible. | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.40) | |
| A reaction: James probably didn't know about Bayes, but this is directed at the Bayesian approach. My view is that full rational assessment of coherence is a much better bet than a Bayesian calculation. Factors must be weighted. |
| 5080 | We know a thing if we grasp its first causes, principles and basic elements [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We think we know a thing only when we have grasped its first causes and principles and have traced it back to its elements. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 184a12) | |
| A reaction: A nice Aristotelian analysis. It is hard to see what else you need to know about a thunderstorm, once you know what causes it, the principles which guide its operation, and the elements of which it is composed. But doesn't Aristotle seek its purpose…? |
| 11250 | Four Explanations: the essence and form; the matter; the source; and the end [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle gives us four explanations (or causes) of things: the essence (to ti estin, to ti en einai) and the form (he morphe, to eidos); the matter (hule); the source of change and generation (to kinoun); and the end (telos) at which change is directed. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.4 | |
| A reaction: Politis presents these as primarily the Four Explanations, rather than under the better-known label of the 'Four Causes'. It is interesting that essence and form are lumped in together, under what is normally labelled the 'formal cause'. |
| 12045 | Aristotle's four 'causes' are four items which figure in basic explanations of nature [Aristotle, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: The four so-called 'causes' are the different types of item which figure in what Aristotle thinks are the four fundamental types of explanation of nature. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE]) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This interpretation now seems to be standard among modern scholars. The word 'aitia' translates as 'explanation', but it is important to remember that it also translates as 'cause'. Aristotelian explanations are essentially causal. |
| 16969 | Science refers the question Why? to four causes/explanations: matter, form, source, purpose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the natural scientist refers the question 'Why?' to this set of four causes [aition] - matter, form, source of change, purpose - he will be explaining things in the way a natural scientist should. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 198a23) | |
| A reaction: This is even more conclusive than Idea 16968 in showing that we have the Four Modes of Explanation, not the so-called Four Causes. |
| 16968 | There are as many causes/explanations as there are different types of why-question [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are causes [aition] and there are as many of them as we have been saying, since there are just as many different kinds of question covered by the question 'Why?'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 198a16) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to split the questions into 'what is it?' and 'what initiated the change?'. This, along with Idea 16969, is Exhibit A for saying Aristotle has the Four Explanations, not the Four Causes (which are so famous). |
| 13109 | Chance is inexplicable, because we can only explain what happens always or usually [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Chance is inexplicable, because explanations can only be given for things that happen either always or usually, but the province of chance is things which do not happen always or usually. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 197a19) | |
| A reaction: This seems wrong. We can explain perfectly well a chance meeting in the market place - it is just that the explanation is not of much use in making future predictions. But we may avoid the market place because of the danger of chance meetings. |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| Full Idea: Alongside the passion for simplification …is the passion for distinguishing; it is the passion to be acquainted with the parts rather than to comprehend the whole. | |
| From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.22) | |
| A reaction: As I child I dismantled almost every toy I was given. This seems to be the motivation for a lot of analytic philosophy, but Aristotle also tended to think that way. |