display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 16841 | Good inference has mechanism, precision, scope, simplicity, fertility and background fit [Lipton] |
| Full Idea: Among the inferential virtues commonly cited are mechanism, precision, scope, simplicity, fertility or fruitfulness, and fit with background beliefs. | |
| From: Peter Lipton (Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) [2004], 08 'the guiding') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hempel, Kuhn, Quine, and Newton-Smith] I take the over-arching term 'coherence' to cover much of this, though a bolder hypothesis offers more than mere coherence. |
| 5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
| A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |
| 16854 | Contrary pairs entail contradictions; one member entails negation of the other [Lipton] |
| Full Idea: All pairs of contraries entail a pair of contradictories, since one member of such a pair always entails the negation of the other. P&Q and not-P are contraries, but the first entails P, which is contradictory of not-P. | |
| From: Peter Lipton (Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) [2004], 09 'Is the best') |
| 16125 | To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Let's take the kind posited and cut it in two, .then follow the righthand part of what we've cut, and hold onto things that the sophist is associated with until we strip away everything he has in common with other things, then display his peculiar nature. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 264e) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be close to Aristotle's account of definition, when he is trying to get at what-it-is-to-be some thing. But if you strip away everything the definiendum has in common with other things, will anything remain? |
| 16124 | No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato] |
| Full Idea: I don't suppose that anyone with any sense would want to hunt down the definition of 'weaving' for the sake of weaving itself. | |
| From: Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285d) | |
| A reaction: The point seems to be that the definition brings out the connections between weaving and other activities and objects, thus enlarging our understanding. |