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2 ideas
| 17696 | 'Humility is a virtue' has an abstract noun, but 'water is a liquid' has a generic concrete noun [Laycock] |
| Full Idea: Work is needed to distinguish abstract nouns ...from the generic uses of what are otherwise concrete nouns. The contrast is that of 'humility is a virtue' and 'water is a liquid'. | |
| From: Henry Laycock (Words without Objects [2006], Intro 4 n25) | |
| A reaction: 'Work is needed' implies 'let me through, I'm an analytic philosopher', but I don't think they will separate very easily. What does 'watery' mean? Does water have concrete virtues? |
| 13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Most model theories abstract from reality in order to focus on the essential nature of some kind of process or system of relations. ... The point of idealizing in this case is not to simplify, but to eliminate what is not essential. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 4.03) | |
| A reaction: I like this idea a lot. It is where scientific essentialism cashes out in actual scientific practice. Ellis's example is the idealised Carnot heat engine, which never can exist, but which captures what is essential about the process. |