69 ideas
| 1695 | Without extensive examination firm statements are hard, but studying the difficulties is profitable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to make firm statements on these questions without having examined them many times, but to have gone through the various difficulties is not unprofitable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 08b23) | |
| A reaction: Suggesting that philosophy is more like drawing the map than completing the journey. |
| 1697 | The contrary of good is bad, but the contrary of bad is either good or another evil [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad, as we see with health and sickness. But the contrary of bad is sometimes good, sometimes not, as we see with excess, opposed by both deficiency and moderation. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 13b36) |
| 1698 | Both sides of contraries need not exist (as health without sickness, white without black) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With contraries it is not necessary if one exists for the other to exist too, for if everyone were well health would exist but not sickness, and if everything were white whiteness would exist but not black. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a06) |
| 11034 | The differentiae of genera which are different are themselves different in kind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The differentiae of genera which are different and not subordinate one to the other are themselves different in kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b16) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be indicating a category mistake, as he warns us not to attribute the wrong kind of differentiae to something we are picking out. |
| 18367 | A true existence statement has its truth caused by the existence of the thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whereas the true statement [that there is a man] is in no way the cause of the actual thing's existence, the actual thing does seem in some way the cause of the statement's being true. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14b18) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong offers this as the earliest statement of the truthmaker principle. Notice the cautious qualification 'seem in some way'. The truthmaker dependence seems even clearer in falsemaking, where the death of the man falsifies the statement. |
| 11033 | Predications of predicates are predications of their subjects [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject, all things said of what is predicated will be said of the subject also. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b10) |
| 11044 | One is prior to two, because its existence is implied by two [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One is prior to two because if there are two it follows at once that there is one, whereas if there is one there is not necessarily two. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a29) | |
| A reaction: The axiomatic introduction of a 'successor' to a number does not seem to introduce this notion of priority, based on inclusiveness. Introducing order by '>' also does not seem to indicate any logical priority. |
| 11042 | Parts of a line join at a point, so it is continuous [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A line is a continuous quantity. For it is possible to find a common boundary at which its parts join together, a point. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04b33) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be the essential concept of a Dedekind cut. It seems to be an open question whether a cut defines a unique number, but a boundary seems to be intrinsically unique. Aristotle wins again. |
| 11041 | Some quantities are discrete, like number, and others continuous, like lines, time and space [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of quantities, some are discrete, others continuous. ...Discrete are number and language; continuous are lines, surfaces, bodies, and also, besides these, time and place. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04b20) | |
| A reaction: This distinction seems to me to be extremely illuminating, when comparing natural numbers with real numbers, and it is the foundation of the Greek view of mathematics. |
| 11286 | Primary being must be more than mere indeterminate ultimate subject of predication [Politis on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: He criticises his 'Categories' view, because if primary being is simply the ultimate subject of predication the primary being is, in virtue of itself, something indeterminate; it would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for primary being. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: Thus, Politis argues, primary being is essence in the later work. The words 'substance' and 'ousia' cause confusion here, and must be watched closely. Wedin argues that Aristotle merely develops his 'Categories' view, but most disagree. |
| 1700 | There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place. A change in our affections would be an example of alteration. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 15a13) |
| 1699 | A thing is prior to another if it implies its existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That from which the implication of existence does not hold reciprocally is thought to be prior. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14a32) | |
| A reaction: shadows and objects |
| 18366 | Of interdependent things, the prior one causes the other's existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For of things which reciprocate as to implication of existence, that which is in some way the cause of the other's existence might reasonably by called prior by nature. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 14b12) | |
| A reaction: Not so clear when you seek examples. The bus is prior to its redness, but you can't have a colourless bus, so being coloured is prior to being a bus. Aristotle's example is a man being prior to the truths about him. |
| 3311 | The categories (substance, quality, quantity, relation, action, passion, place, time) peter out inconsequentially [Benardete,JA on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Aristotelian schedule of categories - substance, quality, quantity, relation, action, passion, place, time, and so forth - appears to peter out inconsequentially. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 5544 for Kant's attempt to classify categories. Personally I like the way Aristotle's 'peter out'. That seems to me a more plausible character for good metaphysics. |
| 11035 | There are ten basic categories for thinking about things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being-affected. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01b25) | |
| A reaction: This sums up the earlier of Aristotle's two metaphysical view, and each of this categories is discussed in the present text. |
| 13121 | Substance,Quantity,Quality,Relation,Place,Time,Being-in-a-position,Having,Doing,Being affected [Aristotle, by Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's list of ten categories proved to be the most influential scheme found in his works: Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Being-in-a-position, Having, Doing, Being affected. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 |
| 16116 | Aristotle derived categories as answers to basic questions about nature, size, quality, location etc. [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle seems to have worked out his list of categories by considering various questions that one might ask about a particular object, such as What is it? How big is it? How is it qualified? And Where is it? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance | |
| A reaction: Of course, to think of his questions, Aristotle already had categories in his mind. How would he approach a proposal to recategorise reality more efficiently? |
| 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. |
| 21345 | Aristotle said relations are not substances, so (if they exist) they must be accidents [Aristotle, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle categorised relations as accidents - Socrates's whiteness, the sphericity of this ball - entities dependent on substances. Relations are not substances, so they must be, if anything at all, accidents. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], §7) by John Heil - Relations 'Historical' | |
| A reaction: Heil says this thought encouraged anti-realist views of relations, which became the norm until Russell. |
| 16155 | Aristotle promoted the importance of properties and objects (rather than general and particular) [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle is taking a first step in making the distinction between objects and properties central to ontology. This plays virtually no role in Plato, and was overshadowed by the distinction between general and particular. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle I | |
| A reaction: Frede says he gets in a tangle because he mixes the earlier and the new views. Because we are nowadays in a total muddle about properties, I'm thinking we should go back to the earlier view! Modern commentators make him a trope theorist. |
| 11032 | Some things said 'of' a subject are not 'in' the subject [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of things there are, some are said of a subject, but are not in any subject. For example, man is said of a subject, the individual man, but is not in any subject. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01a20) | |
| A reaction: See? 'Being a man' is not a property of a man! Only the properties which are 'in' the man are properties of the man. The rest are things which are said 'of' men, usually as classifications. A classification is not a property. |
| 11038 | We call them secondary 'substances' because they reveal the primary substances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is reasonable that, after the primary substances, their species and genera should be the only other things called (secondary) substances. For only they, of things predicated, reveal the primary substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b29) | |
| A reaction: This is the key passage in all of Aristotle for sortal essentialists like Wiggins, especially the word 'only'. I take it that this observation is superseded by the Metaphysics. Definition is the route to substance (which involves general terms). |
| 16739 | Four species of quality: states, capacities, affects, and forms [Aristotle, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In Categories 8 there are four species of qualities: States and conditions, Natural capacities and incapacities, Affective qualities or affections, and Shape and external form. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], Ch.8) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 |
| 11037 | Colour must be in an individual body, or it is not embodied [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Colour is in body and therefore also in an individual body; for were it not in some individual body it would not be in body at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b02) | |
| A reaction: This may be just a truism, or it may be the Aristotelian commitment to universals only existing if they are instantiated. |
| 16154 | Aristotle gave up his earlier notion of individuals, because it relied on universals [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle abandons the notion of an individual which he had relied on in the 'Categories', since it presupposes that there are general things, that there are universals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: Ah, very illuminating. So all the way through we have a concept of individuals, first relying on universals, and then relying on hylomorphism? I suppose a bundle theory of individuals would need universals. |
| 12351 | Genus and species are substances, because only they reveal the primary substance [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: The reason Aristotle gives for calling species and genera substances is that of what is predicated only they reveal what the primary substance is. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b29-37) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.6 | |
| A reaction: Thus we should not be misled into thinking that the genus and species ARE the essence. We edge our way towards the essence of an individual by subdividing its categories. |
| 1694 | Substances have no opposites, and don't come in degrees (including if the substance is a man) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing contrary to substances,…. and a substance does not admit of a more and a less. If this substance is a man, it will not be more a man or less a man either than itself or than another man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b33) |
| 16091 | Is primary substance just an ultimate subject, or some aspect of a complex body? [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: 'Categories' treats something's being an ultimate subject as a test for being a primary substance, but it does not treat its primary objects as complex bodies consisting of matter and form. In that case, is the composite or a feature the ultimate subject? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Gill is trying to throw light on the difference between 'Categories' and 'Metaphysics'. Once you have hylomorphism (form-plus-matter) you have a new difficulty in explaining unity. The answer is revealed once we understand 'form'. |
| 11280 | Primary being is 'that which lies under', or 'particular substance' [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle argues the primary being (proté ousia) is the ultimate subject of predication (to hupokeimenon, meaning 'that which lies under'), nowadays referred to as the 'particular substance' view. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 4.4 | |
| A reaction: Politis says that Aristotle shifts to the quite different view in 'Metaphysics', that primary being is essence, rather than mere subject of predication. |
| 11040 | A single substance can receive contrary properties [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It seems distinctive of substance that what is numerically one and the same is able to receive contraries. ...For example, an individual man - one and the same - becomes pale at one time and dark at another. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 04a10/20) |
| 16140 | Secondary substances do have subjects, so they are not ultimate in the ontology [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The concept of substance applies to secondary substances only with some deletions; ..it is not true that they have no subjects, and hence they are not ultimate subjects for all other elements of the ontology. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: It increasingly strikes that to treat secondary substance (roughly, species) as essence is a shocking misreading of Aristotle. Frede says they are substances, because they do indeed 'underlie'. |
| 10965 | In earlier Aristotle the substances were particulars, not kinds [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle changed his view, as in 'Categories' the substances, the basic realities, were particular items, notably individual men, horses, cabbages etc. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.178 | |
| A reaction: The charge is that having successfully rebelled against Plato, Aristotle gradually succumbed to his teacher's influence, and ended up with a more platonist view. For anti-platonists like myself, the 'Categories' seems to be the key text. |
| 11036 | A 'primary' substance is in each subject, with species or genera as 'secondary' substances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A substance, in its most primary sense, is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or horse. The species in which things primarily called substances are, are called secondary substances, as are the genera. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02a11) | |
| A reaction: This distinction between 'primary' and 'secondary' substances is characteristic of Aristotle's earlier metaphysical view, with the later view (more unified and Platonic) in the 'Metaphysics'. |
| 8287 | Earlier Aristotle had objects as primary substances, but later he switched to substantial form [Aristotle, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In 'Categories' primary substances are individual concrete objects, such as a particular horse, whereas in 'Metaphysics' such things are combinations of matter and substantial form, with the latter being the primary substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 9.1 | |
| A reaction: Lowe claims there is no real difference. Aristotle came to think that matter was not part of primary substance, so the shift seems to be that substance was concrete, but then he decided it was abstract. Physicists will prefer 'Metaphysics'. |
| 12350 | Things are called 'substances' because they are subjects for everything else [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is because the primary substances are subjects for everything else that they are called substances [ousiai] most strictly. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03a04) | |
| A reaction: This points to a rather minimal account of substance, as possibly the 'bare particular' which has no other role than to have properties. This expands in 'Metaphysics' to be matter which has form, making properties possible. |
| 11039 | A primary substance reveals a 'this', which is an individual unit [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Every substance seems to signify a certain 'this'. As regards the primary substances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain 'this'; for the thing revealed is individual and numerically one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b10) | |
| A reaction: The notion of 'primary' substance is confined to this earlier metaphysics of Aristotle. |
| 12361 | Primary substances are ontological in 'Categories', and explanatory in 'Metaphysics' [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: The primacy of 'Categories' primary substances is a kind of ontological primacy, whereas the primacy of form is a kind of structural or explanatory primacy. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance X.9 | |
| A reaction: 'Structural' and 'explanatory' sound very different, since the former sounds ontological and the latter epistemological (and more subjective). |
| 3315 | Aristotle denigrates the category of relation, but for modern absolutists self-relation is basic [Benardete,JA on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle denigrates the whole category of relations, but modern logical absolutists single out self-relation (in the mode of identity) as metaphysically privileged. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: I think this refers to Plantinga and Merrihew Adams, who make identity-with-itself the basic component of individual existences. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 17471 | Using mechanisms as explanatory schemes began in chemistry [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: The production of mechanisms as explanatory schemes finds its original home in chemistry. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to mechanisms in biology or neuroscience, which come later. |
| 17472 | Thick mechanisms map whole reactions, and thin mechanism chart the steps [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In chemistry the 'thick' notion of a mechanism traces out positions of electrons and atomic cores, and correlates them with energies, showing the whole reaction. 'Thin' mechanisms focus on a discrete set of intermediate steps. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) |
| 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. |
| 12349 | Only what can be said of many things is a predicable [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle reminds us that nothing is to count as predicable that cannot be said-of many things. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.1 | |
| A reaction: Thus there wouldn't be any predicates if there were not universals. Could we have proper names for individual qualities (tropes), in the way that we have them for individual objects? |
| 11837 | Some predicates signify qualification of a substance, others the substance itself [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'White' signifies nothing but a qualification, whereas the species ('man') and the genus ('animal') mark off the qualification of substance - they signify substance of a certain qualification. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 03b18) | |
| A reaction: This is making a fundamental distinction between two different types of predication. I would describe them as one attributing a real property, and the other attributing a category (as a result of the properties). I don't think 'substance' helps here. |
| 17465 | Lavoisier's elements included four types of earth [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Four types of earth found a place on Lavoisier's list of elements. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice intermediate point between the ancient Greek and the modern view of earth. |
| 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. |
| 11043 | It is not possible for fire to be cold or snow black [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible for fire to be cold or snow black. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 12b01) |
| 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. |
| 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'. |
| 1696 | Change goes from possession to loss (as in baldness), but not the other way round [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Change occurs from possession to privation, but from privation to possession is impossible; one who has gone blind does not recover sight nor does a bald man regain his hair nor does a toothless man grow new ones. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 13a35) | |
| A reaction: Although this seems like an insight into entropy, it isn't an accurate observation, since trees lose their leaves, and then regain them in spring. Maybe somewhere men regrow their hair each spring. |
| 17468 | Over 100,000,000 compounds have been discovered or synthesised [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are well over 100,000,000 chemical compounds that have been discovered or synthesised, all of which have been formally characterised. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.3) |
| 17470 | Water molecules dissociate, and form large polymers, explaining its properties [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Water's structure cannot simply be described as a collection of individual molecules. There is a continual dissociation of H2O molecules into hydrogen and hydroxide ions; they former larger polymeric species, explaining conductivity, melting and boiling. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] If philosophers try to state the 'essence of water', they had better not be too glib about it. |
| 17473 | It is unlikely that chemistry will ever be reduced to physics [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers believe chemistry has not been reduced to physics nor is it likely to be. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6) | |
| A reaction: [Le Poidevin 2007 argues the opposite] That chemical features are actually metaphysically 'emergent' is a rare view, defended by Hendry. The general view is that the concepts are too different, and approximations render it hopeless. |
| 17474 | Quantum theory won't tell us which structure a set of atoms will form [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Quantum mechanics cannot tell us why a given collection of atoms will adopt one molecular structure (and set of chemical properties) or the other. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it the 'chance' process of how the atoms are thrown together. |
| 17475 | For temperature to be mean kinetic energy, a state of equilibrium is also required [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Having a particular average kinetic energy is only a necessary condition for having a given temperature, not a sufficient one, because only gases at equilibrium have a well-defined temperature. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: If you try to pin it all down more precisely, the definition turns out to be circular. |
| 17469 | 'H2O' just gives the element proportions, not the microstructure [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: 'H2O' is not a description of any microstructure. It is a compositional formula, describing the combining proportions of hydrogen and oxygen to make water. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) |
| 17467 | Isotopes (such as those of hydrogen) can vary in their rates of chemical reaction [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are chemically salient differences among the isotopes, best illustrated by the three isotopes of hydrogen: protium, deuterium and tritium, which show different rates of reaction, making heavy water poisonous where ordinary water is not. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Paul Needham 2008] The point is that the isotopes are the natural kinds, rather than the traditional elements. The view is unorthodox, but clearly makes a good point. |
| 17466 | Mendeleev systematised the elements, and also gave an account of their nature [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In addition to providing the systematization of the elements used in modern chemistry, Mendeleev also gave an account of the nature of the elements which informs contemporary philosophical understanding. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.3) |