Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Truth-making without Truth-makers' and 'Nine political essays'

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4 ideas

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation

17319	There are 'conceptual' explanations, with their direction depending on complexity [Schnieder]
	Full Idea: The direction of conceptual explanations seems to be owed to factors of conceptual complexity and primitiveness.
	From: Benjamin Schnieder (Truth-making without Truth-makers [2006], p.33), quoted by David Liggins - Truth-makers and dependence 10.2
	A reaction: Schnieder proposes that there are just 'causal' and 'conceptual' explanations. Liggins objects that there are other types of dependence which offer explanations.

25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 4. Property rights

6581	Hume thought (unlike Locke) that property is a merely conventional relationship [Hume, by Fogelin]
	Full Idea: Hume thought (in contrast to Locke) that property reflects a conventional (rather than natural) relationship determined by the laws that protect people from having things taken from them.
	From: report of David Hume (Nine political essays [1741]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3
	A reaction: It seems pretty obvious that the idea of property was invented by the powerful, to protect their gains against the weak. I suspect that you might till a piece of land simply in order to assert ownership of it, just as you might bring in colonists.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature

1748	Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
	From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

5989	Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
	Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
	From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
	A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.