Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Explanation in Mathematics', 'Dthat' and 'Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities

13166	Essences are no use in mathematics, if all mathematical truths are necessary [Mancosu]
	Full Idea: Essences and essential properties do not seem to be useful in mathematical contexts, since all mathematical truths are regarded as necessary (though Kit Fine distinguishes between essential and necessary properties).
	From: Paolo Mancosu (Explanation in Mathematics [2008], §6.1)
	A reaction: I take the proviso in brackets to be crucial. This represents a distortion of notion of an essence. There is a world of difference between the central facts about the nature of a square and the peripheral inferences derivable from it.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism

17093	Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon]
	Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms.
	From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7
	A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon.

17492	Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon]
	Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems.
	From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical'
	A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach.

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference

14080	Are causal descriptions part of the causal theory of reference, or are they just metasemantic? [Kaplan, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Kaplan notes that the causal theory of reference can be understood in two quite different ways, as part of the semantics (involving descriptions of causal processes), or as metasemantics, explaining why a term has the referent it does.
	From: report of David Kaplan (Dthat [1970]) by Jonathan Schaffer - Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson 1
	A reaction: [Kaplan 'Afterthought' 1989] The theory tends to be labelled as 'direct' rather than as 'causal' these days, but causal chains are still at the heart of the story (even if more diffused socially). Nice question. Kaplan takes the meta- version as orthodox.