12 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. |
| 13120 | Chisholm divides things into contingent and necessary, and then individuals, states and non-states [Chisholm, by Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm's Ontological Categories: ENTIA - {Contingent - [Individual - (Boundaries)(Substances)] [States - (Events)]} {Necessary - [States] [Non-States - (Attributes)(Substance)]} | |
| From: report of Roderick Chisholm (A Realistic Theory of Categories [1996], p.3) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 | |
| A reaction: [I am attempting a textual representation of a tree diagram! The bracket-styles indicate the levels.] |
| 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. |
| 16634 | I can't be unaware of anything which is in me [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can be in me of which I am entirely unaware. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to First Objections [1641]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.4 | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a place where Descartes is utterly and catastrophically wrong. Until you grasp the utter falseness of this thought, the possibility of you (dear reader) understanding human beings is zero. Here 'I' obviously means his mind. |
| 3635 | Essence must be known before we discuss existence [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: According to the laws of true logic, we must never ask about the existence of anything until we first understand its essence. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to First Objections [1641], 108) |
| 3634 | We can't prove a first cause from our inability to grasp infinity [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: My inability to grasp an infinite chain of successive causes without a first cause does not entail that there must be a first cause, just as my inability to grasp infinite divisibility of finite things does not make that impossible. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to First Objections [1641], 106) |