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All the ideas for 'The Value of Science', 'Postscripts on supervenience' and 'works'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy

6841	Some continental philosophers are relativists - Baudrillard, for example [Baudrillard, by Critchley]
	Full Idea: There are philosophers in the continental tradition who are relativists - Baudrillard, for example.
	From: report of Jean Baudrillard (works [1976]) by Simon Critchley - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.192
	A reaction: This remark is in the context of Critchley denying that most continental philosophers are relativists.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

13745	Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence [Kim]
	Full Idea: It is a mistake, or at least misleading, to think of supervenience itself as a special and distinctive type of dependence relation, alongside causal dependence, mereological dependence, semantic dependence, and others.
	From: Jaegwon Kim (Postscripts on supervenience [1993], 2)
	A reaction: The point, I take it, is that supervenience is something which requires explanation, rather than being a conclusion to the debate. Why are statues beautiful? Why do brains generate minds?

13746	Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation [Kim]
	Full Idea: Supervenience itself is not an explanatory relation, not a 'deep' metaphysical relation; rather it is a 'surface' relation that reports a pattern of property covariation, suggesting the presence of an interesting dependency relation that might explain it.
	From: Jaegwon Kim (Postscripts on supervenience [1993], 2)
	A reaction: I think the underlying idea here is that supervenience appeals to the Humean view of physical laws as mere regularities, but it is no good for those who seek underlying mechanisms to explain the patterns and regularities. Humeans are wrong.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature

15877	The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
	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.
	From: report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
	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.