49 ideas
| 19215 | Arguers often turn the opponent's modus ponens into their own modus tollens [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: There is a seasoned method of turning your opponent's modus ponens into your own modus tollens. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.VII) | |
| A reaction: That is, they say 'if he's coming he'll be hear by now, and he's definitely coming', to which you say 'I'm afraid he's not here, so he obviously isn't coming after all'. They say if-A-then-B, and A, so B. You say not-B, so you're wrong about A. |
| 19205 | 'Snow is white' only contingently expresses the proposition that snow is white [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: It is contingently true that 'snow is white' expresses the proposition that snow is white. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.V n14) | |
| A reaction: Tarski stuck to sentences, but Merricks rightly argues that truth concerns propositions, not sentences. Sentences are subservient entities - mere tools used to express what matters, which is our thoughts (say I). |
| 19209 | Simple Quantified Modal Logc doesn't work, because the Converse Barcan is a theorem [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Logical consequence guarantees preservation of truth. The Converse Barcan, a theorem of Simple Quantified Modal Logic, says that an obvious truth implies an obvious falsehood. So SQML gets logical consequence wrong. So SQML is mistaken. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.V) | |
| A reaction: I admire this. The Converse Barcan certainly strikes me as wrong (Idea 19208). Merricks grasps this nettle. Williamson grasps the other nettle. Most people duck the issue, I suspect. Merricks says later that domains are the problem. |
| 19208 | The Converse Barcan implies 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists' [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The Converse Barcan Formula has a startling result. Simple Quantified Modal Logic (SQML) has the following as a theorem: □∀xFx → ∀x□Fx. So 'everything exists necessarily' is a consequence of 'necessarily, everything exists'. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.V) | |
| A reaction: He says this is blatantly wrong. Williamson is famous for defending it. I think I'm with Merricks on this one. |
| 8729 | Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Intuitionists in mathematics deny excluded middle, because it is symptomatic of faith in the transcendent existence of mathematical objects and/or the truth of mathematical statements. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: There are other problems with excluded middle, such as vagueness, but on the whole I, as a card-carrying 'realist', am committed to the law of excluded middle. |
| 19207 | Sentence logic maps truth values; predicate logic maps objects and sets [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The models for sentential logic map sentences to truth-values. The models for predicate logic map parts of sentences to objects and sets. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.II) | |
| A reaction: Logic books rarely tell you important things like this. That is why this database is so incredibly important! You will never understand the subject if you don't collect together the illuminating asides of discussion. They say it all so much more simply. |
| 8763 | The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: It is surely wise to identify the positions in the natural numbers structure with their counterparts in the integer, rational, real and complex number structures. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: The point is that this might be denied, since 3, 3/1, 3.00.., and -3*i^2 are all arrived at by different methods of construction. Natural 3 has a predecessor, but real 3 doesn't. I agree, intuitively, with Shapiro. Russell (1919) disagreed. |
| 18249 | Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A sequence a1,a2,... of rational numbers is 'Cauchy' if for each rational number ε>0 there is a natural number N such that for all natural numbers m, n, if m>N and n>N then -ε < am - an < ε. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 7.2 n4) | |
| A reaction: The sequence is 'Cauchy' if N exists. |
| 8764 | Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: There is a dedicated contingent who hold that the category of 'categories' is the proper foundation for mathematics. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.3 n7) | |
| A reaction: He cites Lawvere (1966) and McLarty (1993), the latter presenting the view as a form of structuralism. I would say that the concept of a category will need further explication, and probably reduce to either sets or relations or properties. |
| 8762 | Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Zermelo said that for each number n, its successor is the singleton of n, so 3 is {{{null}}}, and 1 is not a member of 3. Von Neumann said each number n is the set of numbers less than n, so 3 is {null,{null},{null,{null}}}, and 1 is a member of 3. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 645 - Zermelo could save Plato from the criticisms of Aristotle! These two accounts are cited by opponents of the set-theoretical account of numbers, because it seems impossible to arbitrate between them. |
| 8760 | Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The structuralist vigorously rejects any sort of ontological independence among the natural numbers; the essence of a natural number is its relations to other natural numbers. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to place the emphasis on ordinals (what order?) rather than on cardinality (how many?). I am strongly inclined to think that this is the correct view, though you can't really have relations if there is nothing to relate. |
| 8761 | A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A 'system' is a collection of objects with certain relations among them; a 'pattern' or 'structure' is the abstract form of a system, highlighting the interrelationships and ignoring any features they do not affect how they relate to other objects. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: Note that 'ignoring' features is a psychological account of abstraction, which (thanks to Frege and Geach) is supposed to be taboo - but which I suspect is actually indispensable in any proper account of thought and concepts. |
| 8744 | Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The thesis that principles of arithmetic are derivable from the laws of logic runs against a now common view that logic itself has no ontology. There are no particular logical objects. From this perspective logicism is a non-starter. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This criticism strikes me as utterly devastating. There are two routes to go: prove that logic does have an ontology of objects (what would they be?), or - better - deny that arithmetic contains any 'objects'. Or give up logicism. |
| 8749 | Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Term Formalism is the view that mathematics is just about characters or symbols - the systems of numerals and other linguistic forms. ...This will cover integers and rational numbers, but what are real numbers supposed to be, if they lack names? | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.1) | |
| A reaction: Real numbers (such as pi and root-2) have infinite decimal expansions, so we can start naming those. We could also start giving names like 'Harry' to other reals, though it might take a while. OK, I give up. |
| 8750 | Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Game Formalism likens mathematics to chess, where the 'content' of mathematics is exhausted by the rules of operating with its language. ...This, however, leaves the problem of why the mathematical games are so useful to the sciences. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.2) | |
| A reaction: This thought pushes us towards structuralism. It could still be a game, but one we learned from observing nature, which plays its own games. Chess is, after all, modelled on warfare. |
| 8752 | Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: The Deductivist version of formalism (sometimes called 'if-thenism') says that the practice of mathematics consists of determining logical consequences of otherwise uninterpreted axioms. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: [Hilbert is the source] More plausible than Term or Game Formalism (qv). It still leaves the question of why it seems applicable to nature, and why those particular axioms might be chosen. In some sense, though, it is obviously right. |
| 8753 | Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Critics commonly complain that the intuitionist restrictions cripple the mathematician. On the other hand, intuitionist mathematics allows for many potentially important distinctions not available in classical mathematics, and is often more subtle. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: The main way in which it cripples is its restriction on talk of infinity ('Cantor's heaven'), which was resented by Hilbert. Since high-level infinities are interesting, it would be odd if we were not allowed to discuss them. |
| 8731 | Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: I classify conceptualists according to what they say about properties or concepts. If someone classified properties as existing independent of language I would classify her as a realist in ontology of mathematics. Or they may be idealists or nominalists. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: In other words, Shapiro wants to eliminate 'conceptualist' as a useful label in philosophy of mathematics. He's probably right. All thought involves concepts, but that doesn't produce a conceptualist theory of, say, football. |
| 8730 | 'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: A definition of a mathematical entity is 'impredicative' if it refers to a collection that contains the defined entity. The definition of 'least upper bound' is impredicative as it refers to upper bounds and characterizes a member of this set. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The big question is whether mathematics can live with impredicative definitions, or whether they threaten to be viciously circular, and undermine the whole enterprise. |
| 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. |
| 19214 | In twinning, one person has the same origin as another person [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Origin essentialists claim that parental union results in a person, and that person could not have resulted from any other union. However, if the fertilised egg undergoes twinning, at least one of the resultant persons is not the original person. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.V) | |
| A reaction: Merricks says that therefore that origin could have just produced the second twin, rather than the original person. This is interesting, but doesn't seem to threaten the necessity of origin thesis. Once I'm here, I have that origin, despite my twin. |
| 8725 | Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Rationalism is a long-standing school that can be characterized as an attempt to extend the perceived methodology of mathematics to all of knowledge. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Sometimes called 'Descartes's Dream', or the 'Enlightenment Project', the dream of proving everything. Within maths, Hilbert's Programme aimed for the same certainty. Idea 22 is the motto for the opposition to this approach. |
| 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. |
| 19217 | I don't accept that if a proposition is directly about an entity, it has a relation to the entity [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The Aboutness Assumption says that necessarily, if a proposition is directly about an entity, then that proposition stands in a relation to the entity. I shall argue that the Assumption is false. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 5.VII) | |
| A reaction: This feels sort of right, though the nature of aboutness remains elusive. He cites denials of existence. I take speech to be fairly internal, even though its main role is communication. Maybe its a Cambridge relation, as far as the entity is concerned. |
| 19203 | A sentence's truth conditions depend on context [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A sentence has truth conditions only in a context of use. And the truth conditions of many sentences can differ from one context of use to another (as in 'I am a philosopher'). | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.II) | |
| A reaction: He is building a defence of propositions, because they are eternal, and have their truth conditions essentially. I too am a fan of propositions. |
| 19200 | Propositions are standardly treated as possible worlds, or as structured [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The thesis that propositions are sets of possible worlds is one of the two leading accounts of the nature of propositions. The other leading account endorses structured propositions. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Merricks sets out to reject both main views. I take the idea that propositions actually are sets of possible worlds to be ridiculous (though they may offer a way of modelling them). The idea that they have no structure at all strikes me as odd. |
| 19206 | 'Cicero is an orator' represents the same situation as 'Tully is an orator', so they are one proposition [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The proposition expressed by 'Cicero is an orator' represents things as being exactly the same way as does the proposition expressed by 'Tully is an orator'. Hence two sentences express the same proposition. Fregeans about names deny this. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 2.II) | |
| A reaction: Merricks makes the situation in the world fix the contents of the proposition. I don't agree. I would expand the first proposition as 'The person I know as 'Cicero' was an orator', but I might never have heard of 'Tully'. |
| 19202 | Propositions are necessary existents which essentially (but inexplicably) represent things [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: My account says that each proposition is a necessary existent that essentially represents things as being a certain way, ...and there is no explanation of how propositions do that. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Since I take propositions to be brain events, I don't expect much of an explanation either. The idea that propositions necessarily exist strikes me as false. If there were no minds, there would have been no propositions. |
| 19204 | True propositions existed prior to their being thought, and might never be thought [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: 1,000 years ago, no sentence had ever expressed, and no one had believed, the true proposition 'a water molecule has two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms'. There are surely true propositions that have never been, and never will be, expressed or believed. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 1.V) | |
| A reaction: 'Surely'? Surely not! How many propositions exist? Where do they exist? What are they made of? If they already exist when we think them, how do we tune into them? When did his example come into existence? Before water did? No! No! |
| 19210 | The standard view of propositions says they never change their truth-value [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: The standard view among philosophers nowadays seems to be that propositions do not and even cannot change in truth-value. But my own view is that some propositions can, and do, change in truth value. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 3.VII) | |
| A reaction: He gives 'that A sits' as an example of one which can change, though 'that A sits at time t' cannot change. I take Merricks to be obviously right, and cannot get my head round the 'standard' view. What on earth do they think a proposition is? |
| 19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: If a singular proposition is 'directly about' an entity, I argue that a singular proposition does not have the entity that it is directly about as a constituent. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This opposes the view of the early Russell, that propositions actually contain the entities they are about, thus making propositions real features of the external world. I take that view of Russell's to be absurd. |
| 19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: I describe Russell's 1903 account of propositions as the view that each proposition is identical with the state of affairs that makes that proposition true. That is, a proposition is identical with its 'truthmaking' state of affairs. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.II) | |
| A reaction: Russell soon gave this view up (false propositions proving tricky), and I'm amazed anyone takes it seriously. I take it as axiomatic that if there were no minds there would be no propositions. Was the Big Bang a set of propositions? |
| 19212 | Unity of the proposition questions: what unites them? can the same constituents make different ones? [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: What binds the constituents of a structured proposition together into a single unity, a proposition? Can the very same constituents constitute two distinct propositions? These are questions about 'the unity of the proposition'. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.II) | |
| A reaction: Merricks solves it by saying propositions have no structure. The problem is connected to the nature of predication (instantiation, partaking). You can't just list objects and their properties. Objects are united, and thus propositions are too. |
| 19213 | We want to explain not just what unites the constituents, but what unites them into a proposition [Merricks] |
| Full Idea: A successful account of the unity of the proposition tells us what unites the relevant constituents not merely into some entity or other, but into a proposition. | |
| From: Trenton Merricks (Propositions [2015], 4.X) | |
| A reaction: Merrickes takes propositions to be unanalysable unities, but their central activity is representation, so if they needed uniting, that would be the place to look. Some people say that we unite our propositions. Others say the world does. I dunno. |
| 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. |
| 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. |