10 ideas
14797 | Vagueness is a neglected but important part of mathematical thought [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Logicians have too much neglected the study of vagueness, not suspecting the important part it plays in mathematical thought. It is the antithetical analogue of generality. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) |
14798 | All communication is vague, and is outside the principle of non-contradiction [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The 'vague' might be defined as that to which the principle of contradiction does not apply. For it is false neither that an animal (in a vague sense) is male, nor that an animal is female. No communication between persons can be entirely non-vague. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) | |
A reaction: Note that he makes vagueness largely a matter of the way we talk, which is David Lewis's approach, and looks right to me. |
12812 | Things have real essences, but we categorise them according to the ideas we receive [Locke] |
Full Idea: This I do say, that there are real constitutions in things from whence simple ideas flow, which we observe combin'd in them. But we distinguish particular substances into sorts or genera not by real essences or constitutions, but by observed simple ideas. | |
From: John Locke (Letters to William Molyneux [1692], 1693.01.20) | |
A reaction: This is the clearest statement I can find of Locke's position on essences. He is totally committed to their reality, but strongly aware of the empirical constraints which keep us from direct knowledge of them. He would be amazed by modern discoveries. |
17488 | Empiricist theories are sets of laws, which give explanations and reductions [Glennan] |
Full Idea: In the empiricist tradition theories were understood to be deductive closures of sets of laws, explanations were understood as arguments from covering laws, and reduction was understood as a deductive relationship between laws of different theories. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: A lovely crisp summary of the whole tradition of philosophy of science from Comte through to Hempel. Mechanism and essentialism are the new players in the game. |
17493 | Modern mechanism need parts with spatial, temporal and function facts, and diagrams [Glennan] |
Full Idea: Modern champions of mechanisms say models should identify both the parts and their spatial, temporal and functional organisation, ...and the practical importance of diagrams in addition to or in place of linguistic representations of mechanisms. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Discover') | |
A reaction: Apparently chemists obtain much more refined models by using mathematics than they did by diagrams or 3D models (let alone verbal descriptions). For that reason, I'm thinking that 'model' might be a better term than 'mechanism'. |
17487 | Mechanistic philosophy of science is an alternative to the empiricist law-based tradition [Glennan] |
Full Idea: To a significant degree, a mechanistic philosophy of science can be seen as an alternative to an earlier logical empiricist tradition in philosophy of science that gave pride of place to laws of nature. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: Lovely! Someone who actually spells out what's going on here. Most philosophers are far too coy about explaining what their real game is. Mechanism is fine in chemistry and biology. How about in 'mathematical' physics, or sociology? |
17489 | Mechanisms are either systems of parts or sequences of activities [Glennan] |
Full Idea: There are two sorts of mechanisms: systems consist of collections of parts that interact to produce some behaviour, and processes are sequences of activities which produce some outcome. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: [compressed] The second one is important because it is more generic, and under that account all kinds the features of the world that need to be explained can be subsumed. E.g. hyperinflation in an economy is a 'mechanism'. |
17490 | 17th century mechanists explained everything by the kinetic physical fundamentals [Glennan] |
Full Idea: 17th century mechanists said that interactions governed by chemical, electrical or gravitational forces would have to be explicable in terms of the operation of some atomistic (or corpuscular) kinetic mechanism. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: Glennan says science has rejected this, so modern mechanists do not reduce mechanisms to anything in particular. |
17491 | Unlike the lawlike approach, mechanistic explanation can allow for exceptions [Glennan] |
Full Idea: One of the advantages of the move from nomological to mechanistic modes of explanation is that the latter allows for explanations involving exception-ridden generalizations. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'regular') | |
A reaction: The lawlike approach has endless problems with 'ceteris paribus' ('all things being equal') laws, where specifying all the other 'things' seems a bit tricky. |
17494 | Since causal events are related by mechanisms, causation can be analysed in that way [Glennan] |
Full Idea: Causation can be analyzed in terms of mechanisms because (except for fundamental causal interactions) causally related events will be connected by intervening mechanisms. | |
From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'causation') | |
A reaction: This won't give us the metaphysics of causation (which concerns the fundamentals), but this strikes me as a very coherent and interesting proposal. He mentions electron interaction as non-mechanistic causation. |