8 ideas
| 21959 | Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too. |
| 21958 | Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507) |
| 7776 | Metaphors just mean what their words literally mean [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphors mean what the words, in their most literal interpretation, mean, and nothing more. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.30) | |
| A reaction: This pronouncement must be the result of Davidson anguishing over the truth conditions for metaphors, which are usually either taken to have a 'metaphorical meaning', or to be abbreviated similes. He solved his problem at a stroke! Plausible. |
| 7777 | We accept a metaphor when we see the sentence is false [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is only when a sentence is taken to be false that we accept it as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.40) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very nice and true generalisation, even though Davidson mentions "no man is an island" as a counterexample. We thirst for meaning, and switch to a second meaning when the first one looks peculiar. |
| 7775 | Understanding a metaphor is a creative act, with no rules [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Understanding a metaphor is as much a creative endeavour as making a metaphor, and as little guided by rules. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.29) | |
| A reaction: This is good news for literature studies courses. Davidson's point is that the metaphor itself only gives you a literal meaning, so it doesn't tell you how to interpret it. It seems an attractive proposal. |
| 21236 | Instead of gravitational force, we now have a pervasive gravitational field [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Physics replaced the notion that bodies exert gravitational force on each other by the more effective picture that the bodies in the universe give rise to a pervasive gravitational field which exerts a force on each particle. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: This still uses the word 'force'. I sometimes get the impression that gravity is the curvature of space, but gravity needs more. Which direction along the curvature are particles attracted? The bottom line is the power of the bodies. |
| 21235 | The Schrödinger waves are just the maths of transforming energy values to positions [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Dirac showed that the Schrödinger waves were simply the mathematical quantities involved in transforming the description of a quantum based on its energy values to one based on possible values of its position. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 08) | |
| A reaction: Does this eliminate actual physical 'waves' from the theory? |
| 21234 | Experiments show that fundamental particles of one type are identical [Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: It is an established experimental fact ...that every single fundamental particle in the universe is the same and identical to all other particles of the same type. | |
| From: Graham Farmelo (The Strangest Man [2009], 07) | |
| A reaction: A loud groan is heard from the tomb of Leibniz. I'm unclear how experiments can establish this. If electrons have internal structure (which is not ruled out) then uniformity is highly unlikely. |