14956
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Explanation by kinds and by clusters of properties just express the stability of reality [Ladyman/Ross]
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Full Idea:
Philosophers sometimes invoke natural kinds as if they explain the possibility of explanation. This is characteristically neo-scholastic. That anything can be explained, and that properties cluster together, express one fact: reality is relatively stable.
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From:
J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6)
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A reaction:
Odd idea. I would have thought that if there are indeed kinds and clusters, this would explain a great deal more than mere stability. Or, more accurately, they would invite a more substantial explanation than mere stability would seem to need.
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5467
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Euler said nature is instrinsically passive, and minds cause change [Euler, by Ellis]
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Full Idea:
Euler thought the powers necessary for the maintenance of the changing universe would turn out to be just the passive ones of inertia and impenetrability. There are no active powers, he urged, other than those of God and living beings.
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From:
report of Leonhard Euler (Letters to a German Princess [1765]) by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.4
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A reaction:
Very significant, I think, for revealing the religious framework behind early theories of natural laws. If there is nothing external to impose powers and movements on nature, the source must be sought within - hence essentialism.
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14902
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Science may have uninstantiated laws, inferred from approaching some unrealised limit [Ladyman/Ross]
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Full Idea:
It is possible that uninstantiated laws can be established in science, and consequently bear explanatory weight, ..if we need reasons for thinking that the closer conditions get to some limit, the more they approximate to some ideal.
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From:
J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3)
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A reaction:
[The cite Hüttemann 2004] I am dubious about laws, but I take this to be a point in favour of inference to the best explanation, and against accounts of laws as supervenient of how things actually are.
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