6 ideas
| 9226 | If mathematical theories conflict, it may just be that they have different subject matter [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Unlike logic, in the case of mathematics there may be no genuine conflict between alternative theories: it is natural to think that different theories, if both consistent, are simply about different subjects. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Recent Debates on the A Priori [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: For this reason Field places logic at the heart of questions about a priori knowledge, rather than mathematics. My intuitions make me doubt his proposal. Given the very simple basis of, say, arithmetic, I would expect all departments to connect. |
| 22179 | Explanatory facts also predict, and predictive facts also explain [Hempel, by Okasha] |
| Full Idea: Hempel said every scientific explanation is potentially a prediction - it would have predicted the phenomenon in question, had it not already been known. But also the information used to make a prediction is potentially an explanation. | |
| From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 3 | |
| A reaction: Sounds too neatly glib to be quite true. If you explain a single event there is nothing to predict. You might predict accurately from a repetitive pattern, with no understanding at all of the pattern. |
| 6755 | For Hempel, explanations are deductive-nomological or probabilistic-statistical [Hempel, by Bird] |
| Full Idea: Hempel proposes that explanations involve covering laws and antecedent conditions; this view (the 'covering law' view) has two versions, the deductive-nomological model and the probabilistic-statistical model of explanation. | |
| From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: The obvious problem with this approach, it seem to me, is that the laws themselves need explanation, and I don't see how a law can be foundational unless there is a divine law-giver. Are the laws arbitrary and axiomatic? |
| 17083 | The covering-law model is for scientific explanation; historical explanation is quite different [Hempel] |
| Full Idea: To put forward the covering-law models of scientific explanation is not to deny that there are other contexts in which we speak of explanation. ….That it does not fit explaining the rules of Hanoverian succession is to miss the intent of our model. | |
| From: Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965], p. 412-3), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 1 | |
| A reaction: Important to get that clear. It then requires a clear demarcation between science and the rest, and it had better not rule out biology because it is having a love affair with physics. |
| 13052 | Hempel rejects causation as part of explanation [Hempel, by Salmon] |
| Full Idea: Hempel explicitly rejects the idea that causality plays any essential explanatory role. | |
| From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965], p.352) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 1.1 | |
| A reaction: Hempel champions the 'covering-law' model of explanation. It strikes me that Hempel is so utterly wrong about this that his views aren't even a candidate for correctness, but then for a long time his views were orthodoxy. |
| 7482 | Resurrection developed in Judaism as a response to martyrdoms, in about 160 BCE [Anon (Dan), by Watson] |
| Full Idea: The idea of resurrection in Judaism seems to have first developed around 160 BCE, during the time of religious martyrdom, and as a response to it (the martyrs were surely not dying forever?). It is first mentioned in the book of Daniel. | |
| From: report of Anon (Dan) (27: Book of Daniel [c.165 BCE], Ch.7) by Peter Watson - Ideas | |
| A reaction: Idea 7473 suggests that Zoroaster beat them to it by 800 years. |