Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'The Sceptical Chemist' and 'Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / E. Nonclassical Logics / 5. Relevant Logic
8720 A logic is 'relevant' if premise and conclusion are connected, and 'paraconsistent' allows contradictions [Priest,G, by Friend]
     Full Idea: Priest and Routley have developed paraconsistent relevant logic. 'Relevant' logics insist on there being some sort of connection between the premises and the conclusion of an argument. 'Paraconsistent' logics allow contradictions.
     From: report of Graham Priest (works [1998]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 6.8
     A reaction: Relevance blocks the move of saying that a falsehood implies everything, which sounds good. The offer of paraconsistency is very wicked indeed, and they are very naughty boys for even suggesting it.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
20653 Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
     Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
     From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
     A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
15961 I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds [Boyle]
     Full Idea: I confess I cannot well conceive how from matter, barely put into motion and left to itself, there could emerge such curious fabricks as the bodies of men and perfect animals, and more admirably contrived parcels of matter, as seeds of living creatures.
     From: Robert Boyle (The Sceptical Chemist [1661], p.569), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
     A reaction: This is here to show that one of the most brilliant intellects of the seventeenth century thought carefully about this question and couldn't answer it. Natural selection really was a rather clever idea.