25 ideas
| 3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], II.3) |
| 3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Once we move beyond investigating correlations between observables the question of what does or should guide our choice between alternative explanatory accounts becomes problematic. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], IX.2) |
| 3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We are only justified in regarding scientific practice as the very paradigm of rationality if we can justify the claim that scientific change is rationally explicable. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.2) |
| 3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: The critics of positivism attacked the conception of a dichotomy between theory and observation. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4) |
| 3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: For positivists it was taken that while theory change meant change in the meaning of theoretical terms, the meaning of observational terms was invariant under theory change. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4) |
| 3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: If a theory is a better approximation to the truth, then it is likely that it will have greater predictive power. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VIII.8) |
| 3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We cannot explicate a useful notion of verisimilitude in terms of the number of truths and the number of falsehoods generated by a theory, because they are infinite. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.4) |
| 22297 | Dummett saw realism as acceptance of bivalence, rather than of mind-independent entities [Dummett, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Dummett aimed to characterise realism in terms not of the mind-independence of the entities but of the validity of bivalence for sentences referring to them. | |
| From: report of Michael Dummett (Realism [1982]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 21 'Lang' | |
| A reaction: Hence he called himself a 'philosopher of language', rather than a 'philosopher of thought'. Philosophers of language are more likely to end up as anti-realists, I suspect. |
| 3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: A necessary truth is 'de re' if its necessity arises from the way the world is. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VII.6) |
| 9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: A statement can be (metaphysically) necessary and epistemologically contingent. Human intuition has no privileged access to metaphysical necessity. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.160) | |
| A reaction: The terminology here is dangerously confusing. 'Contingent' is a term which (as Kripke insists) refers to reality, not to our epistemological abilities. The locution of adding the phrase "for all I know" seems to handle the problem better. |
| 5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Conceivability is no proof of possibility. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.159) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really basic truth which all novice philosophers should digest. It led many philosophers, especially rationalists, into all sorts of ill-founded claims about what is possible or necessary. Zombies, for instance… |
| 3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: We cannot determine what someone's beliefs are independently of assessing to some extent the truth or falsity of the beliefs. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], X.4) |
| 3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: The challenge of incommensurability can be met once it is realised that in comparing theories the notions of truth and reference are more important than that of meaning. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.6) |
| 3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: A full grasp of the concept '…is yellow' involves coming to accept as true bits of theory; that is, generalisations involving the term 'yellow'. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], II.2) |
| 3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: According to Feyerabend all theories are born falsified, because no theory has ever been totally free of anomalies. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: When scientists observed the motion of Uranus, they did not give up on Newtonian mechanics. Instead they posited the existence of Neptune. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Whether to reject an anomaly has to be decided on the basis of the availability of a rival theory, and on the basis of the positive evidence for the theory in question. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], III.9) |
| 3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Why should it be so important to distinguish between theories that are scientific and those that are not? | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], IV.3) |
| 3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: If theories are genuinely incommensurable why should I be faced with the problem of choosing between them? Why not believe them all? | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], VII.1) |
| 9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: My concept of an elm tree is exactly the same as my concept of a beech tree (I blush to confess). ..We still say that the extension of 'elm' in my idiolect is the same as the extension of 'elm' in anyone else's, viz. the set of all elm trees. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.154) | |
| A reaction: This example is clearer and less open to hair-splitting than his water/XYZ example. You could, with Putnam, say that his meaning of 'elm' is outside his head, but you could also say that he doesn't understand the word very well. |
| 5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Our theory can be summarized as saying that words like 'water' have an unnoticed indexical component: "water" is stuff that bears a certain similarity relation to the water around here. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.160) | |
| A reaction: This is the causal theory of reference, which leads to externalism about concepts, which leads to an externalist view of thought, which undermines internal accounts of the mind like functionalism, and leaves little room for scepticism… Etc. |
| 9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Traditional semantic theory leaves out two contributions to the determination of reference - the contribution of society and the contribution of the real world; a better semantic theory must encompass both. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.161) | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree that there is a social aspect to reference-fixing, but I am much more dubious about the world 'determining' anything. The whole of his Twin Earth point could be mopped up by a social account, with 'experts' as the key idea. |
| 5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: There are tools like a hammer used by one person, and there are tools like a steamship which require cooperative activity; words have been thought of too much on the model of the first sort of tool. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.156) | |
| A reaction: This clear thought strikes me as the most fruitful and sensible consequence of Wittgenstein's later ideas (as opposed to the relativistic 'language game' ideas). I am unconvinced that a private language is logically impossible, but it would be feeble. |
| 3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: To explain an action as an action is to show that it is rational. | |
| From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], X.2) |
| 5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Once we have discovered that water (in the actual world) is H2O, nothing counts as a possible world in which water isn't H2O. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.159) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there could be a possible world in which water is a bit cloudy, so the fact that it is H2O is being judged as essential. Presumably the scientists in the possible world might discover that we are wrong about the chemistry of water? |