15877
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The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
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Full Idea:
In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
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From:
report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
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A reaction:
I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.
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12719
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Clearly, force is that from which action follows, when unimpeded [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The notion of force is as clear as that of action and passion, because it is that from which action follows when nothing prevents it.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Paul Pellison-Fontinier [1691], A1.6.226), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
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A reaction:
For Leibniz, force seems to be a metaphysical notion, rather than a feature of the physical world. I take it to be the bottom level of explanation, and it equates with Aristotelian form and essence.
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