30 ideas
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: That knowledge is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: A surprising view, coming from the father of modern science, but essentially correct. Obviously metaphysics aspires to avoid multiplicity, but it is riddled not only with complexity in its researches, but massive uncertainties. |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Knowledges are as pyramides, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history, the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: The father of modern science keeps a place for metaphysics, as the most abstract level above the physical sciences. I would say he is right. It leads to my own slogan: science is the servant of philosophy. |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: He cites the ancients for this view, with which he agrees. One could do worse than hang onto metaphysics as the study of necessities, but must then face the attacks of the Quineans - that knowledge of necessities is beyond us. |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and metaphysic handleth the formal and final causes. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 12119. This divides up Aristotle's famous Four Causes (or Explanations), outlined in 'Physics' II.3. The concept of 'matter', and the nature of 'cause' seem to me to fall with the purview of metaphysics. Interesting, though. |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.5) | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of pithy remark for which Bacon is famous. It is an obvious point, but a nice corrective to anyone who wants to apply empirical principles in a rather gormless way. |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: All true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention of new experiments. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.1) | |
| A reaction: After several hundred years, I doubt whether anyone can come up with a better account of scientific method than Bacon's. |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories and philosophies. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.5) | |
| A reaction: He gives as his example that the Copernican system and the Ptolemaic system both seem to satisfy all the facts. He wrote in 1605, just before Galileo's telescope. His point is regularly made in modern discussions. In this case, he was wrong! |
| 17472 | Thick mechanisms map whole reactions, and thin mechanism chart the steps [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In chemistry the 'thick' notion of a mechanism traces out positions of electrons and atomic cores, and correlates them with energies, showing the whole reaction. 'Thin' mechanisms focus on a discrete set of intermediate steps. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) |
| 17471 | Using mechanisms as explanatory schemes began in chemistry [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: The production of mechanisms as explanatory schemes finds its original home in chemistry. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to mechanisms in biology or neuroscience, which come later. |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: It is the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.1) | |
| A reaction: I have to plead guilty to this myself. He may have pinpointed the key motivation behind philosophy. We all want to know things, as Aristotle said, but some of us want the broad brush, and others want the fine detail. |
| 7404 | Nations are not obliged to help one-another, but are obliged not to harm one another [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius explored the implications of the idea that nation-states were under no obligation to help one another, but they were obliged not to harm each other. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This is quite a striking disanalogy between accepted personal morality and political morality. There are signs in recent years of some recognition that other nations should not just sit and watch suffering. |
| 7402 | Everyone has a right of self-preservation, and harming others is usually unjustifiable [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said that all men would agree that everyone has a fundamental right to preserve themselves, and that wanton or unnecessary injury to another person is unjustifiable. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Who cares if it is 'justifiable'? Do I have to 'justify' killing a mosquito if it lands on my arm? Grotius is taking a step beyond saying that people should defend themselves, to say that they have a 'right' to - the only truly basic right. |
| 21938 | Democracy needs respect for individuality, but the 'community of friends' implies strict equality [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: There is no democracy without respect for irreducible singularity, but there is no democracy with the 'community of friends' without the calculation of majorities, without identifiable representable subjects, all equal. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 7 | |
| A reaction: [source not given] Derrida calls this conflict 'tragic'. The obvious reply is that equality is not an absolute. We can be equal in voting rights while being unequal in height or musical talent. |
| 19845 | A person is free to renounce their state, as long as it is not a moment of crisis [Grotius, by Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Grotius thinks that each person can renounce his state and leave the country. (n15: provided it is not to evade one's duty the moment the homeland needs us; this would be criminal and punishable; it would not be withdrawal, but desertion) | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (tr Cress) III.18 | |
| A reaction: The obvious example is Britons going to America in 1939, or (more controversially) conscripts going to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. I'm unclear whether the idea in the note is that of Grotius or of Rousseau). Is tax exile OK, then? |
| 22133 | Grotius and Pufendorf based natural law on real (rather than idealised) humanity [Grotius, by Ford,JD] |
| Full Idea: Grotius and Pufendorf transformed the natural law tradition by starting from identifiable traits of human nature rather than ideas about what human beings ought to be. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by J.D. Ford - Pufendorf, Samuel p.863 |
| 7406 | A natural right of self-preservation is balanced by a natural law to avoid unnecessary harm [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: For Grotius, there was a fundamental 'natural right' of self-preservation upon which all known moralities and codes of social behaviour must have been constructed, but it is balanced by a fundament duty or 'natural law' to abstain from harming others. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This theory has the virtue of economy, but I don't see how you can clearly justify those particular natural rights and laws, without allowing others to creep in, such as a right to a decent share of food, or a law requiring some fairness. |
| 7403 | Grotius ignored elaborate natural law theories, preferring a basic right of self-preservation [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said there was a minimum core of morality (based on self-preservation), and disregarded the elaborate accounts of principles of natural law which Aristotelians had always sought to develop. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Aquinas would be the key Aristotelian here. I tend towards the Aristotelian view. If you go for the minimal view, it is not clear why there is a 'right' to self-preservation, rather than a mere desire for it. |
| 23585 | It is permissible in a just cause to capture a place in neutral territory [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: It is permissible for one who is waging a just war to take possession of a place situated in a country free from hostilities. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625], II.ii.x), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 15 n | |
| A reaction: This rejects Combatant Equality, allowing the just to do what is morally forbidden to the unjust. |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: To say 'leaves are for protecting of fruit', or that 'clouds are for watering the earth', is well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. They are hindrances, and the search of the physical causes hath been neglected. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard rebellion against Aristotle which gave rise to the birth of modern science. The story has been complicated by natural selection, which bestows a sort of purpose on living things. Nowadays we pursue both paths. |
| 17465 | Lavoisier's elements included four types of earth [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Four types of earth found a place on Lavoisier's list of elements. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice intermediate point between the ancient Greek and the modern view of earth. |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: I assign to summary philosophy the operation of essences (as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility), with this distinction - that they be handled as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a splendid motto for scientific essentialism, in a climate where modal logicians appear to have taken over the driving seat in our understanding of essences. |
| 17468 | Over 100,000,000 compounds have been discovered or synthesised [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are well over 100,000,000 chemical compounds that have been discovered or synthesised, all of which have been formally characterised. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.3) |
| 17470 | Water molecules dissociate, and form large polymers, explaining its properties [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Water's structure cannot simply be described as a collection of individual molecules. There is a continual dissociation of H2O molecules into hydrogen and hydroxide ions; they former larger polymeric species, explaining conductivity, melting and boiling. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] If philosophers try to state the 'essence of water', they had better not be too glib about it. |
| 17473 | It is unlikely that chemistry will ever be reduced to physics [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers believe chemistry has not been reduced to physics nor is it likely to be. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6) | |
| A reaction: [Le Poidevin 2007 argues the opposite] That chemical features are actually metaphysically 'emergent' is a rare view, defended by Hendry. The general view is that the concepts are too different, and approximations render it hopeless. |
| 17474 | Quantum theory won't tell us which structure a set of atoms will form [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Quantum mechanics cannot tell us why a given collection of atoms will adopt one molecular structure (and set of chemical properties) or the other. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it the 'chance' process of how the atoms are thrown together. |
| 17475 | For temperature to be mean kinetic energy, a state of equilibrium is also required [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Having a particular average kinetic energy is only a necessary condition for having a given temperature, not a sufficient one, because only gases at equilibrium have a well-defined temperature. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: If you try to pin it all down more precisely, the definition turns out to be circular. |
| 17469 | 'H2O' just gives the element proportions, not the microstructure [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: 'H2O' is not a description of any microstructure. It is a compositional formula, describing the combining proportions of hydrogen and oxygen to make water. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) |
| 17467 | Isotopes (such as those of hydrogen) can vary in their rates of chemical reaction [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are chemically salient differences among the isotopes, best illustrated by the three isotopes of hydrogen: protium, deuterium and tritium, which show different rates of reaction, making heavy water poisonous where ordinary water is not. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Paul Needham 2008] The point is that the isotopes are the natural kinds, rather than the traditional elements. The view is unorthodox, but clearly makes a good point. |
| 17466 | Mendeleev systematised the elements, and also gave an account of their nature [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In addition to providing the systematization of the elements used in modern chemistry, Mendeleev also gave an account of the nature of the elements which informs contemporary philosophical understanding. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.3) |
| 6892 | Moral principles have some validity without a God commanding obedience [Grotius, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In the Prolegomena to his work there is a famous statement that moral principles laid down in the work would have some degree of validity even if there was no God commanding obedience. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.229 | |
| A reaction: I am not clear why Grotius felt obliged to qualify his claim with the phrase 'some degree'. I don't see how God's command can affect the 'validity' of morality, or how there can be a middle ground between dependence on and independence of God. |