6602
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Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon]
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Full Idea:
Philosophy and the intellectual sciences stand like statues, worshipped and celebrated, but not moved or advanced.
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From:
Francis Bacon (Preface to Great Instauration (Renewal) [1620], Vol.4.14), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5
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A reaction:
Still the view of most scientists, I suspect. Personally I disagree, because I think philosophy has made enormous advances, in accurate analysis of arguments. The trouble is there is so much of it that it is hard to discern, and we don't live long enough.
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13048
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Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
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Full Idea:
Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.
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From:
report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1
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A reaction:
[compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.
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