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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic' and 'Four Decades of Scientific Explanation'

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28 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson]
     Full Idea: In system S5 matters of possibility and necessity are always non-contingent.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 3)
     A reaction: This will be because if something is possible in one world (because it can be seen to be true in some possible world) it will be possible for all worlds (since they can all see that world in S5).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality
Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Modal thinking is logically equivalent to a type of counterfactual thinking. ...The necessary is that which is counterfactually implied by its own negation; the possible is that which does not counterfactually imply its own negation.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
     A reaction: I really like this, because it builds modality on ordinary imaginative thinking. He says you just need to grasp counterfactuals, and also negation and absurdity, and you can then understand necessity and possibility. We can all do that.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / a. Conditionals
Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The strict conditional implies the counterfactual conditional: □(A⊃B) ⊃ (A□→B) - suppose that A would not have held without B holding too; then if A had held, B would also have held.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
     A reaction: [He then adds a reading of his formula in terms of possible worlds] This sounds rather close to modus ponens. If A implies B, and A is actually the case, what have you got? B!
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The counterfactual conditional transmits possibility: (A□→B) ⊃ (◊A⊃◊B). Suppose that if A had held, B would also have held; the if it is possible for A to hold, it is also possible for B to hold.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
     Full Idea: Instead of regarding counterfactuals as conditionals restricted to a range of possible worlds, we can define the necessity operator by means of counterfactuals. Metaphysical necessity is a special case of ordinary counterfactual thinking.
     From: report of Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010]) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 2
     A reaction: [compressed] I very much like Williamson's approach, of basing these things on the ordinary way that ordinary people think. To me it is a welcome inclusion of psychology into metaphysics, which has been out in the cold since Frege.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Knowledge 'that' is descriptive, and knowledge 'why' is explanatory, and it is the latter that provides scientific understanding of our world.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Intro)
     A reaction: I agree, but of course, knowing 'why' may require a lot of knowing 'that'. People with extensive knowledge 'that' things are so tend to understand why something happens more readily than the rest of us ignoramuses.
Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Understanding is an extremely vague concept.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.3)
     A reaction: True, I suppose, but we usually recognise understanding when we encounter it, and everybody has a pretty clear notion of an 'increase' in understanding. I suspect that the concept is perfectly clear, but we lack any scale for measuring it.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Various kinds of correlations exist that provide excellent bases for prediction, but because no suitable causal relations exist (or are known), these correlations do not furnish explanation.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.3)
     A reaction: There may be problem cases for the claim that all explanations are causal, but I certainly think that this idea is essentially right. Prediction can come from induction, but inductions may be true and yet baffling.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon]
     Full Idea: There is a centuries-old philosophical tradition, sometimes referred to by the name of 'instrumentalism', that has denied the claim that science has explanatory power. For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.3)
     A reaction: [He quotes Coffa] Presumably it is just a matter of matching the world to the readings on the instruments, aiming at van Fraassen's 'empirical adequacy'. If there are no scientific explanations, does that mean that there are no explanations at all? Daft!
14. Science / C. Induction / 4. Reason in Induction
Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Inductive logicians have a 'requirement of total evidence': induction is strong if 1) it has true premises, 2) it has correct inductive form, and 3) no additional evidence that would change the degree of support is available at the time.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.4.2)
     A reaction: The evidence might be very close at hand, but not quite 'available' to the person doing the induction.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon]
     Full Idea: I reject the view that scientific explanation involves reduction of the unfamiliar to the familiar.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Pref)
     A reaction: Aristotle sometimes seems to imply this account of explanation, and I would have to agree with Salmon's view of it. Aristotle is also, though, aware of real explanations, definitions and essences. People are 'familiar' with some peculiar things.
Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon]
     Full Idea: There are evidence-seeking why-questions, as well as explanation-seeking why-questions.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2)
     A reaction: Surely we would all prefer an explanation to mere evidence? It seems to me that they are all explanation-seeking, but that we are grateful for some evidence when no full explanation is available. Explanation renders evidence otiose.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon]
     Full Idea: There are three basic conceptions of scientific explanation - modal, epistemic, and ontic - which can be discerned in Aristotle, and that have persisted down the ages.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.1)
The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon]
     Full Idea: The 'inferential' conception of scientific explanation is the thesis that all legitimate scientific explanations are arguments of one sort or another.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1)
     A reaction: This seems to imply that someone has to be persuaded of something, and hence seems a rather too pragmatic view. I presume an explanation might be no more than dumbly pointing at conclusive evidence of a cause. Man with smoking gun.
Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Proponents of the ontic conception of explanation can say that explanations exist in the world as facts, or that they are reports of such facts (as opposed to the view of explanations as arguments, or as speech acts).
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2)
     A reaction: [compressed] I am strongly drawn to the ontic approach, but not sure whether we want facts, or reports of them. The facts are the causal nexus, but which parts of the nexus provide the main aspect of explanation? I'll vote for reports, for now.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon]
     Full Idea: The problem is to distinguish between laws and accidental generalizations, for laws have explanatory force while accidental generalizations, even if they are true, do not.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1)
     A reaction: [He is discussing Hempel and Oppenheim 1948] This seems obviously right, but I can only make sense of the explanatory power if we have identified the mechanism which requires the generalisation to continue in future cases.
Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon]
     Full Idea: The deductive-nomological view has an explanation/prediction symmetry thesis - that a correct explanation could be a scientific prediction, and that any deductive prediction could serve as a deductive-nomological explanation.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 1.1)
     A reaction: Of course, not all predictions will explain, or vice versa. Weird regularities become predictable but remain baffling. Good explanations may be of unrepeatable events. It is the 'law' in the account that ties the two ends together.
A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon]
     Full Idea: To provide an adequate explanation of any given fact, we need to provide information that is relevant to the occurrence of that fact - information that makes a difference to its occurrence. It is not enough to subsume it under a general law.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.2)
     A reaction: [He cites Bromberger for this idea] Salmon is identifying this idea as the beginnings of trouble for the covering-law account of explanation, and it sounds exactly right.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon]
     Full Idea: The height of the flagpole explains the length of the shadow because the interaction between the sunlight and the flagpole occurs before the interaction between the sunlight and the ground.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.6)
     A reaction: [Bromberger produced the flagpole example] This seems to be correct, and would apply to all physical cases, but there may still be cases of explanation which are not causal (in mathematics, for example).
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon]
     Full Idea: My basic feeling about explanation in the quantum realm is that it will involve mechanisms, but mechanisms that are quite different from those that seem to work in the macrocosm.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], Pref)
     A reaction: Since I take most explanation to be by mechanisms (or some abstraction analogous to mechanisms), then I think this is probably right (rather than being by new 'laws').
Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon]
     Full Idea: In functional explanation, there is a disagreement over whether an item has a function the first time it occurs.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.8)
     A reaction: This question arises particularly in evolutionary contexts, and would obviously not generally arise in the case of human artefacts.
Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon]
     Full Idea: I favour an ontic conception of explanation, that explanations reveal the mechanisms, causal or other, that produce the facts we are trying to explain.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 4.1)
     A reaction: [He also cites Coffa and Peter Railton] A structure may explain, and only be supported by causal powers, but it doesn't seem to be the causal powers that do the explaining. Is a peg fitting a hole explained causally?
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / l. Probabilistic explanations
Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Can events whose probabilities are low be explained?
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.6)
     A reaction: I take this to be one of the reasons why explanation must ultimately reside at the level of individual objects and events, rather than residing with generalisations and laws.
Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Statistical relevance, not high probability, is the key desideratum in statistical explanation.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 2.5)
     A reaction: I suspect that this is because the explanation will not ultimately be probabilistic at all, but mechanical and causal. Hence the link is what counts, which is the relevance. He notes that relevance needs two values instead of one high value.
Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Perhaps we should think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Four Decades of Scientific Explanation [1989], 3.2)
     A reaction: [He cites Coffa 1974 for this] I find this suggestion very appealing, as it connects up with dispositions and powers, which I take to be the building blocks of all explanation. It is, of course, easier to render frequencies numerically.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Imagination can be made to look cognitively worthless. Once we recall its fallible but vital role in evaluating counterfactual conditionals, we should be more open to the idea that it plays such a role in evaluating claims of possibility and necessity.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 6)
     A reaction: I take this to be a really important idea, because it establishes the importance of imagination within the formal framework of modern analytic philosopher (rather than in the whimsy of poets and dreamers).
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
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
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.