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Ideas for '', 'Every Thing Must Go' and 'Treatise of Human Nature, Appendix'

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6 ideas

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 3. Knowing Kinds

14956	Explanation by kinds and by clusters of properties just express the stability of reality [Ladyman/Ross]
	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.
	From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6)
	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.

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 4. Source of Kinds

14957	There is nothing more to a natural kind than a real pattern in nature [Ladyman/Ross]
	Full Idea: Everything that a naturalist could legitimately want from the concept of a natural kind can be had simply by reference to real patterns.
	From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6)
	A reaction: I think I agree with this, and with the general idea that natural kinds are overrated. There are varying degrees of stability in nature, and where there is a lot of stability our inductive reasoning can get to work. And that's it.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 7. Eliminating causation

14954	Causation is found in the special sciences, but may have no role in fundamental physics [Ladyman/Ross]
	Full Idea: The idea of causation, as it is used in science, finds its exemplars in the special sciences, and it is presently open empirical question whether that notion will have any ultimate role to play in fundamental physics.
	From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5)
	A reaction: Note that they seem to always have a notion of 'ultimate' physics hovering over their account. I wonder. There is nothing in this idea to make me think that I should eliminate the idea of causation from my metaphysics.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction

16946	Causation is just invariance, as long as it is described in general terms [Quine on Hume]
	Full Idea: Hume explained cause as invariable succession, and this makes sense as long as the cause and effect are referred to by general terms. … This account leaves singular causal statements unexplained.
	From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Willard Quine - Natural Kinds p.131
	A reaction: A nice 20th century linguistic point made against a good 18th century theory.

15250	If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition [Whitehead on Hume]
	Full Idea: Hume confuses 'repetition of impressions' with 'impression of repetitions of impressions'. ...In order of 'force and vivacity' we have: impressions, memories, ideas. This omits the vital fact that memory is memory; the notion of repetition is lost.
	From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality V.II
	A reaction: [compressed; Harré and Madden spotted this idea] This seems to pinpoint rather nicely the hopeless thinness of Hume's account. He is so desperate to get it down to minimal empirical experience that his explanations are too thin. One big idea....

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature

14902	Science may have uninstantiated laws, inferred from approaching some unrealised limit [Ladyman/Ross]
	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.
	From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3)
	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.