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All the ideas for 'works (all lost)', 'works' and 'Homeostasis, Species and Higher Taxa'

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4 ideas

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / d. Explaining people

7082	Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
	Full Idea: Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
	A reaction: This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

22155	We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
	Full Idea: Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
	A reaction: This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 4. Source of Kinds

15150	The properties of an electron can't be explained just as 'clustering' [Chakravartty on Boyd]
	Full Idea: Boyd's homeostatic mechanisms are not responsible for the co-instantiation of the mass, charge and spin of an electron.
	From: comment on Richard Boyd (Homeostasis, Species and Higher Taxa [1999]) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 3
	A reaction: I would have thought that no one has the foggiest idea (unless I have missed something?) about why electrons have those three properties. What is it about electrons that makes them do that? Explanations always run out somewhere. Substratum!

15149	Properties cluster together, either because of intrinsic relations, or because of an underlying process [Boyd, by Chakravartty]
	Full Idea: Boyd analyses 'sociability' between properties in terms of 'homeostasis', as causal relations between properties that favour clustering, or underlying processes that favour coinstantiation, or both.
	From: report of Richard Boyd (Homeostasis, Species and Higher Taxa [1999]) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 3
	A reaction: Chakravarty criticises this claim, by Boyd is clearly onto something. If, like me, you think natural kinds are overrated, you have to like his view.