Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Sayings of Confucius', 'Four Decades of Scientific Explanation' and 'The Realm of Matter'

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29 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
The criterion of existence is the possibility of action [Santayana]
     Full Idea: The possibility of action ...is the criterion of existence, and the test of substantiality.
     From: George Santayana (The Realm of Matter [1930], p.107), quoted by John Heil - The Universe as We Find It
     A reaction: I rather like this. I think I would say the power is the criterion of existence.
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
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?
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.
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.
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: Of what use is eloquence? He who engages in fluency of words to control men often finds himself hated by them.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], V.5)
     A reaction: I don't recall Socrates making this very good point to any of the sophists (such as Gorgias). The idea that if you battle or connive your way to dominance over others then you are successful is false. Life is a much longer game than that.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / h. Against ethics
All men prefer outward appearance to true excellence [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: I have yet to meet a man as fond of excellence as he is of outward appearances.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], IX.18)
     A reaction: Interestingly, this cynical view of the love of virtue is put by Plato into the mouths of Glaucon and Adeimantus (in Bk II of 'Republic', e.g. Idea 12), and not into the mouth of Socrates, who goes on to defend the possibility of true virtue.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
Humans are similar, but social conventions drive us apart (sages and idiots being the exceptions) [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: In our natures we approximate one another; habits put us further and further apart. The only ones who do not change are sages and idiots.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.2)
     A reaction: I find most of Confucius rather uninteresting, but this is a splendid remark about the influence of social conventions on human nature. Sages can achieve universal morality if they rise above social convention, and seek the true virtues of human nature.
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 2. Golden Rule
Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself. Then you will have no enemies, either in the state or in your home.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XII.2)
     A reaction: The Golden Rule, but note the second sentence. Logically, it leads to the absurdity of not giving someone an Elvis record for Christmas because you yourself don't like Elvis. Kant (Idea 3733) and Nietzsche (Idea 4560) offer good criticisms.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: Excess and deficiency are equally at fault.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XI.16)
     A reaction: This is the sort of wisdom we admire in Aristotle (and in any sensible person), but it may also be the deepest motto of conservatism, and it is a long way from romantic philosophy, and the clarion call of Nietzsche to greater excitement in life.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The virtues of the best people are humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: He who in this world can practise five things may indeed be considered Man-at-his-best: humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XVII.5)
     A reaction: A very nice list. Who could resist working with a colleague who had such virtues? Who could go wrong if they married a person who had them? I can't think of anything important that is missing.
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 2. Leaders / d. Elites
Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XIV.37)
     A reaction: Plato notes that such people tend to avoid political life (and a left sheltering, as if from a wild storm!), but he thinks they should be dragged into the political arena for the common good. Confucius seems to approve of the avoidance. Plato is right.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 3. Conservatism
Confucianism assumes that all good developments have happened, and there is only one Way [Norden on Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: The two major limitations of Confucianism are that it assumes that all worthwhile cultural, social and ethical innovation has already occurred, and that it does not recognise the plurality of worthwhile ways of life.
     From: comment on Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 3.III
     A reaction: In modern liberal terms that is about as conservative as it is possible to get. We think of it as the state of mind of an old person who can only long for the way things were when they were young. But 'hold fast to that which is good'!