33 ideas
12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
Full Idea: That knowledge is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
A reaction: A surprising view, coming from the father of modern science, but essentially correct. Obviously metaphysics aspires to avoid multiplicity, but it is riddled not only with complexity in its researches, but massive uncertainties. |
12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
Full Idea: Knowledges are as pyramides, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history, the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
A reaction: The father of modern science keeps a place for metaphysics, as the most abstract level above the physical sciences. I would say he is right. It leads to my own slogan: science is the servant of philosophy. |
12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
Full Idea: Physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
A reaction: He cites the ancients for this view, with which he agrees. One could do worse than hang onto metaphysics as the study of necessities, but must then face the attacks of the Quineans - that knowledge of necessities is beyond us. |
12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
Full Idea: Physic inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and metaphysic handleth the formal and final causes. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 12119. This divides up Aristotle's famous Four Causes (or Explanations), outlined in 'Physics' II.3. The concept of 'matter', and the nature of 'cause' seem to me to fall with the purview of metaphysics. Interesting, though. |
20923 | We take part in objective truth, rather than observe it from a distance [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: Hermeneutic thinkers insist that we need to redefine objective truth as something we take part in rather than something we merely observe from a distance. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 1 'Truth') | |
A reaction: Don't get it. If I objectively judge that there are some cows in a field, I judge that they will probably still be there if I turn away and forget them, so any passionate involvement I have with cows is irrelevant to the objective facts. Am I wrong? |
20926 | Hermeneutic knowledge is not objective, but embraces interpretations [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: In the hermeneutic ideal of knowledge, not distance but involvement, not impersonal observation but personal interaction, not thinking against prejudice or tradition but accessing knowledge through them, characterizes our perception of the world. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 3 'Beyond') | |
A reaction: To make this stick it will have to challenge scientific knowledge which results from mathematical summaries of measurements done by instruments. Is a stop watch an interpretation? |
16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: Causality is a clue to what properties are real. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 9.3) | |
A reaction: An interesting variant on the Shoemaker proposal that properties actually are causal. I'm not sure that there is anything more to causality that the expression in action of properties, which I take to be powers. Structures are not properties. |
20924 | In phenomenology, all perception is 'seeing as' [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: That human perception is always a 'seeing as' was the cardinal insight of what Husserl called 'phenomenology'. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 2 'Husserl's') | |
A reaction: I presume that 'cardinal insight' means there is no possibility of Husserl being wrong about this. What's happening before you figure out what it is you are looking at? |
12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
Full Idea: They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.5) | |
A reaction: Just the sort of pithy remark for which Bacon is famous. It is an obvious point, but a nice corrective to anyone who wants to apply empirical principles in a rather gormless way. |
12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
Full Idea: All true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention of new experiments. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.1) | |
A reaction: After several hundred years, I doubt whether anyone can come up with a better account of scientific method than Bacon's. |
12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
Full Idea: The ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories and philosophies. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.5) | |
A reaction: He gives as his example that the Copernican system and the Ptolemaic system both seem to satisfy all the facts. He wrote in 1605, just before Galileo's telescope. His point is regularly made in modern discussions. In this case, he was wrong! |
16182 | Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: In explaining a phenomenon one can cite the causes of that phenomenon; or one can set the phenomenon in a general theoretical framework. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 4.1) | |
A reaction: The thing is, you need to root an explanation in something taken as basic, and theoretical frameworks need further explanation, whereas causes seem to be basic. |
16184 | An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: To explain a phenomenon is to find a model that fits it into the basic framework of the theory and that thus allows us to derive analogues for the messy and complicated phenomenological laws that are true of it. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 8.3) | |
A reaction: This summarises the core of her view in this book. She is after models rather than laws, and the models are based on causes. |
16171 | The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: The covering-law account supposes that there is, in principle, one 'right' explanation for each phenomenon. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], Intro) | |
A reaction: Presumably the law is held to be 'right', but there must be a bit of flexibility in describing the initial conditions, and the explanandum itself. |
16167 | Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: We explain by ceteris paribus laws, by composition of causes, and by approximations that improve on what the fundamental laws dictate. In all of these cases the fundamental laws patently do not get the facts right. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], Intro) | |
A reaction: It is rather headline-grabbing to say in this case that laws do not get the facts right. If they were actually 'wrong' and 'lied', there wouldn't be much point in building explanations on them. |
16169 | Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: When different kinds of causes compose, we want to explain what happens in the intersection of different domains. But the laws we use are designed only to tell truly what happens in each domain separately. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], Intro) | |
A reaction: Since presumably the laws are discovered through experiments which try to separate out a single domain, in those circumstances they actually are true, so they don't 'lie'. |
16176 | Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: Much criticism of the original covering-law model objects that it lets in too much. It seems we can explain Henry's failure to get pregnant by his taking birth control pills, and we can explain the storm by the falling barometer. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 2.0) | |
A reaction: I take these examples to show that true explanations must be largely causal in character. The physicality of causation is what matters, not 'laws'. I'd say the same of attempts to account for causation through counterfactuals. |
16177 | I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: Covering-law theorists tend to think that nature is well-regulated; in the extreme, that there is a law to cover every case. I do not. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 2.2) | |
A reaction: The problem of coincidence is somewhere at the back of this thought. Innumerable events have their own explanations, but it is hard to explain their coincidence (see Aristotle's case of bumping into a friend in the market). |
16180 | You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: 'Why does that quail in the garden bob its head up and down in that funny way whenever it walks?' …'Because they all do'. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 3.5) | |
A reaction: She cites this as an old complaint against the covering-law model of explanation. It captures beautifully the basic error of the approach. We want to know 'why', rather than just have a description of the pattern. 'They all do' is useful information. |
16183 | In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: There are a huge number of cases in the history of science where we now know our best explanations were false. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 5.3) | |
A reaction: [She cites Laudan 1981 for this] The Ptolemaic system and aether are the standard example cited for this. I believe strongly in the importance of best explanation. Only a fool would just accept the best explanation available. Coherence is needed. |
12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
Full Idea: It is the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.1) | |
A reaction: I have to plead guilty to this myself. He may have pinpointed the key motivation behind philosophy. We all want to know things, as Aristotle said, but some of us want the broad brush, and others want the fine detail. |
20927 | The hermeneutic circle is between the reader's self-understanding, and the world of the text [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: The 'hermeneutic circle' of understanding is not between the author and the reader, but between my understanding myself in my own world, and the world projected by the text, with its possibilities for life. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 4 'How texts') | |
A reaction: I'm not much of a fan of hermeneutics, but this idea seems quite important. Readings of Dickens in1860, 1930 and 2020 are very different events. For example, which parts catch the reader's interest, or jar with their sensibilities? |
20933 | Natural law theorists fear that without morality, law could be based on efficiency [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: Natural law theorists fear that by denying the intrinsic connection between law and morality, positivists could encourage the validation of law based on efficiency alone. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 6 'Natural') | |
A reaction: The law's the law. The issue can only be whether one can ever be justified in breaking a law, and that isn't a legal question. I am sympathetic to the positiviists. |
12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
Full Idea: To say 'leaves are for protecting of fruit', or that 'clouds are for watering the earth', is well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. They are hindrances, and the search of the physical causes hath been neglected. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.7) | |
A reaction: This is the standard rebellion against Aristotle which gave rise to the birth of modern science. The story has been complicated by natural selection, which bestows a sort of purpose on living things. Nowadays we pursue both paths. |
16175 | A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: A cause ought to increase the frequency of the effect, but this fact may not show up in the probabilities if other causes are at work. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [She cites Patrick Suppes for this one] Presumably in experimental situations you can weed out the interference, but that threatens to eliminate mere 'probability' entirely. |
6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
Full Idea: Nancy Cartwright distinguishes between 'fundamental explanatory laws', which we should not believe, and 'phenomenological laws', which are regularities established on the basis of observation. | |
From: report of Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.4 | |
A reaction: The distinction is helpful, so that we can be clearer about what everyone is claiming. We can probably all agree on the phenomenological laws, which are epistemological. Personally I claim truth for the best fundamental explanatory laws. |
16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: Philosophers distinguish phenomenological from theoretical laws. Phenomenological laws are about appearances; theoretical ones are about the reality behind the appearances. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm suspecting that Humeans only really believe in the phenomenological kind. I'm only interested in the theoretical kind, and I take inference to the best explanation to be the bridge between the two. Cartwright rejects the theoretical laws. |
16179 | Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: There is no reason to think that the principles that best organise will be true, nor that the principles that are true will organise much. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 2.5) | |
A reaction: This is aimed at the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of laws, as axiomatisations of the observed patterns in nature. |
12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
Full Idea: I assign to summary philosophy the operation of essences (as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility), with this distinction - that they be handled as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically. | |
From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a splendid motto for scientific essentialism, in a climate where modal logicians appear to have taken over the driving seat in our understanding of essences. |
16178 | There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: Where theories intersect, laws are usually hard to come by. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 2.3) | |
A reaction: There are attempts at so-called 'bridge laws', to get from complex theories to simple ones, but her point is well made about theories on the same 'level'. |
16170 | To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: To get from a detailed factual knowledge of a situation to an equation, we must prepare the description of the situation to meet the mathematical needs of the theory. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], Intro) | |
A reaction: She is clearly on to something here, as Galileo is blatantly wrong in his claim that the book of nature is written in mathematics. Mathematics is the best we can manage in getting a grip on the chaos. |
16181 | Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N] |
Full Idea: For explanation simple laws must have the same form when they act together as when they act singly. ..But then what the law states cannot literally be true, for the consequences that occur if it acts alone are not what occurs when they act in combination. | |
From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 3.6) | |
A reaction: This is Cartwright's basic thesis. Her point is that the laws 'lie', because they claim to predict a particular outcome which never ever actually occurs. She says we could know all the laws, and still not be able to explain anything. |
20929 | Traditionally, God dictated the Torah to Moses, unlike the later biblical writings [Zimmermann,J] |
Full Idea: Jewish traditionalists hold that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the 'Torah') were dictated word for word by God to Moses, while the remaining sacred writings were more generally inspired. | |
From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 5 'Inspiration') | |
A reaction: This gives the Torah a similar status to the Quran, and presumably also to the actual words which are ascribed to Jesus in the four gospels. |