Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Philosophy of Natural Science' and 'The Quest for Certainty'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

21516	We want certainty in order to achieve secure results for action [Dewey]
	Full Idea: The ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results for action.
	From: John Dewey (The Quest for Certainty [1929], p.39), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 10.5
	A reaction: Just what a pragmatist should say. This may be true within an evolutionary account of human nature, but seems unlikely when doing a sudoku. The 'ground' of the quest may not be the same as its 'source'.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation

21507	Scientific explanation aims at a unifying account of underlying structures and processes [Hempel]
	Full Idea: What theoretical scientific explanation aims at is an objective kind of insight that is achieved by a systematic unification, by exhibiting the phenomena as manifestations of common underlying structures and processes that conform to testable principles.
	From: Carl Hempel (Philosophy of Natural Science [1967], p.83), quoted by Laurence Bonjour - The Structure of Empirical Knowledge 5.3
	A reaction: This is a pretty good statement of scientific essentialism, and structures and processes are what I take Aristotle to have had in mind when he sought 'what it is to be that thing'. Structures and processes give stability and powers.