11 ideas
17082 | Paradox: why do you analyse if you know it, and how do you analyse if you don't? [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The alleged paradox of analysis asserts that if one knew what was involved in the concept, one would not need the analysis; if one did not know what was involved in the concept, no analysis could be forthcoming. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
A reaction: This is the sort of problem that seemed to bug Plato a lot. You certainly can't analyse something if you don't understand it, but it seems obvious that you can illuminatingly analyse something of which you have a reasonable understanding. |
17087 | The 'symmetry thesis' says explanation and prediction only differ pragmatically [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The 'symmetry thesis' holds that there is only a pragmatic, or epistemic, but no logical, difference between explaining and predicting. …The only difference is in what the producer of the deduction knows just before the deduction is produced. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 4) | |
A reaction: He cites Mill has holding this view. It seems elementary to me that I can explain something but not predict it, or predict it but not explain it. The latter case is just Humean habitual induction. |
17081 | Usually explanations just involve giving information, with no reference to the act of explanation [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Plato, Aristotle, Mill and Hempel believed that an explanatory product can be characterized solely in terms of the kind of information it conveys, no reference to the act of explaining being required. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
A reaction: Achinstein says it's about acts, because the same information could be an explanation, or a critique, or some other act. Ruben disagrees, and so do I. |
17092 | An explanation needs the world to have an appropriate structure [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Objects or events in the world must really stand in some appropriate 'structural' relation before explanation is possible. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
A reaction: An important point. These days people talk of 'dependence relations'. Some sort of structure to reality (mainly imposed by the direction of time and causation, I would have thought) is a prerequisite of finding a direction to explanation. |
17090 | Most explanations are just sentences, not arguments [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Typically, full explanations are not arguments, but singular sentences, or conjunctions thereof. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 6) | |
A reaction: This is mainly objecting to the claim that explanations are deductions from laws and facts. I agree with Ruben. Explanations are just information, I think. Of course, Aristotle's demonstrations are arguments. |
17094 | The causal theory of explanation neglects determinations which are not causal [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The fault of the causal theory of explanation was to overlook the fact that there are more ways of making something what it is or being responsible for it than by causing it. …Causation is a particular type of determinative relation. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
A reaction: The only thing I can think of is that certain abstract facts are 'determined' by other abtract facts, without being 'caused' by them. A useful word. |
17088 | Reducing one science to another is often said to be the perfect explanation [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The reduction of one science to another has often been taken as paradigmatic of explanation. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
A reaction: It seems fairly obvious that the total reduction of chemistry to physics would involve the elimination of all the current concepts of chemistry. Could this possibly enhance our understanding of chemistry? I would have thought not. |
17089 | Facts explain facts, but only if they are conceptualised or named appropriately [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Facts explain facts only when the features and the individuals the facts are about are appropriately conceptualized or named. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
A reaction: He has a nice example that 'Cicero's speeches stop in 43 BCE' isn't explained by 'Tully died then', if you don't know that Cicero was Tully. Ruben is not defending pragmatic explanation, but to this extent he must be right. |
5987 | Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von] |
Full Idea: Alcmaeon apparently was the first Greek to assign central cognitive and biological functions to the brain. | |
From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE]) by Heinrich von Staden - Alcmaeon | |
A reaction: The name of Alcmaeon should be remembered with honour. This was 200 years before Aristotle, who still hadn't worked it out. I presume Alcmaeon inferred the truth from head injuries, which is overwhelming evidence, if you notice it. |
7482 | Resurrection developed in Judaism as a response to martyrdoms, in about 160 BCE [Anon (Dan), by Watson] |
Full Idea: The idea of resurrection in Judaism seems to have first developed around 160 BCE, during the time of religious martyrdom, and as a response to it (the martyrs were surely not dying forever?). It is first mentioned in the book of Daniel. | |
From: report of Anon (Dan) (27: Book of Daniel [c.165 BCE], Ch.7) by Peter Watson - Ideas | |
A reaction: Idea 7473 suggests that Zoroaster beat them to it by 800 years. |
24043 | Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven. | |
From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30 | |
A reaction: Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic. |