22334
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Analysis must include definitions, search for simples, concept analysis, and Kant's analysis [Glock]
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Full Idea:
Under 'analysis' a minimum would include the Socratic quest for definitions, Descartes' search for simple natures, the empiricists' psychological resolution of complex ideas, and Kant's 'transcendental' analysis of our cognitive capacities.
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From:
Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 6.1)
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A reaction:
This has always struck me, and I find the narrow focus on modern logic a very distorted idea of the larger project. The aim, I think, is to understand by taking things apart, in the spirit of figuring out how a watch works.
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6019
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If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus]
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Full Idea:
If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist.
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From:
Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11
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A reaction:
Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance?
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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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