|
7082
|
Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
|
|
A reaction:
This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.
|
|
12737
|
Nature can be fully explained by final causes alone, or by efficient causes alone [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
All the phenomena of nature can be explained solely by final causes, exactly as if there were no efficient causes; and all the phenomena of nature can be explained solely by efficient causes, as if there were no final causes.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Definitiones cogitationesque metaphysicae [1678], A6.4.1403), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6
|
|
A reaction:
Somewhat speculative (a virtue!), but it is interesting to see him suggesting that there might be two complete and satisfactory explanations, which never touched one another. I can't see Aristotle agreeing with that.
|
|
22155
|
We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
|
|
A reaction:
This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.
|