Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Logical Investigations' and 'Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World'

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7 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology
Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt]
     Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey'
Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam]
     Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind).
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2
     A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'.
Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
     Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
     A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
     A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon]
     Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms.
     From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7
     A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon.
Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon]
     Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems.
     From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical'
     A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?