13048
|
Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
|
|
Full Idea:
Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.
|
|
From:
report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.
|
7091
|
The argument from analogy is not a strong inference, since the other being might be an actor or a robot [Grayling]
|
|
Full Idea:
The argument from analogy is a weak one, because it does not logically guarantee the inference I draw to the other's inner states, for he might be dissimulating or acting, or may even be a cleverly contrived robot which feels nothing.
|
|
From:
A.C. Grayling (Wittgenstein [1988], Ch.3)
|
|
A reaction:
This gives the impression that for an argument to be strong it must logically guarantee its inference. It strikes me that analogy is a good reason for believing in other minds, but that is because I am looking for the best explanation, not logical proof.
|