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7464
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The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution? [Watson]
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Full Idea:
Candidates for the most important idea in human history are: mimetic thinking (imitation), the soul, the experiment, the One True God, the heliocentric universe, and evolution.
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From:
Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.03)
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A reaction:
From this list I would choose the heliocentric universe, because it so dramatically downgraded the importance of our species (effectively we went from everything to nothing). We still haven't recovered from the shock.
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22353
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One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
One conception of objectivity is that the facts are 'out there', and it is the task of scientists to discover, analyze and sytematize them. 'Objective' is a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2)
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A reaction:
This seems to describe truth, rather than objectivity. You can establish accurate facts by subjective means. You can be fairly objective but miss the facts. Objectivity is a mode of thought, not a link to reality.
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22356
|
An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
Sense experience is necessarily perspectival, so to the extent to which scientific theories are to track the absolute conception [of reality], they must describe a world different from sense experience.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
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A reaction:
This is a beautifully simple and interesting point. Even when you are looking at a tree, to grasp its full reality you probably need to close your eyes (which is bad news for artists).
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22359
|
Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
There may be values involved in the choice of a research problem, the gathering of evidence, the acceptance of a theory, and the application of results. ...The first and fourth do involve values, but what of the second and third?
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
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A reaction:
[compressed] My own view is that the danger of hidden distorting values has to be recognised, but it is then possible, by honest self-criticism, to reduce them to near zero. Sociological enquiry is different, of course.
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22360
|
The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
According to the Value-Free Ideal, scientific objectivity is characterised by absence of contextual values and by exclusive commitment to epistemic values in scientific reasoning.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
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A reaction:
This seems appealing, because it concedes that we cannot be value-free, without suggesting that we are unavoidably swamped by values. The obvious question is whether the two types of value can be sharply distinguished.
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22362
|
Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
Three components of value-free science are Impartiality (appraising theories only by epistemic scientific standards), Neutrality (the theories make no value statements), and Autonomy (the theory is motivated only by science).
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3)
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A reaction:
[They are summarising Hugh Lacey, 1999, 2002] I'm not sure why the third criterion matters, if the first two are met. If a tobacco company commissions research on cigarettes, that doesn't necessarily make the findings false or prejudiced.
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22364
|
Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
Thermometers assume the length of the fluid or gas is a function of temperature, and different substances yield different results. It was decided that different thermometers using the same substance should match, and air was the best, but not perfect.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1)
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A reaction:
[summarising Hasok Chang's research] This is a salutary warning that instruments do not necessarily solve the problem of objectivity, though thermometers do seem to be impersonal, and offer relative accuracy (i.e. ranking temperatures). Cf breathalysers.
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13076
|
Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
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A reaction:
The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
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13102
|
If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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A reaction:
There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
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13103
|
Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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A reaction:
This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
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13104
|
Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
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A reaction:
[He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
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13100
|
Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
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A reaction:
They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
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13068
|
We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
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|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
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A reaction:
My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
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13069
|
The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
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A reaction:
It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
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13101
|
Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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A reaction:
Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
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22357
|
The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger]
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Full Idea:
The 'experimenter's regress' says that to know whether a result is correct, one needs to know whether the apparatus is reliable. But one doesn't know whether the apparatus is reliable unless one knows that it produces correct results ...and so on.
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|
From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
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A reaction:
[H. Collins (1985), a sociologist] I take this to be a case of the triumphant discovery of a vicious circle which destroys all knowledge turning out to be a benign circle. We build up a coherent relationship between reliable results and good apparatus.
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13071
|
We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
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A reaction:
This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
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7474
|
Hinduism has no founder, or prophet, or creed, or ecclesiastical structure [Watson]
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Full Idea:
Traditional Hinduism has been described as more a way of living than a way of thought; it has no founder, no prophet, no creed and no ecclesiastical structure.
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|
From:
Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05)
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A reaction:
This contrast strikingly with all later religions, which felt they had to follow the Jews in becoming a 'religion of the book', with a sacred text, and hence a special status for the author(s) of that text.
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7475
|
Confucius revered the spiritual world, but not the supernatural, or a personal god, or the afterlife [Watson]
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Full Idea:
Confucius was deeply religious in a traditional sense, showing reverence towards heaven and an omnipresent spiritual world, but he was cool towards the supernatural, and does not seem to have believed in either a personal god or an afterlife.
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|
From:
Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05)
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|
A reaction:
The implication is that the spiritual world was very remote from us, and beyond communication. Sounds like deism.
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