Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Roots of Reference', 'The Principles of Chemistry' and 'Making It Explicit'

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6 ideas

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts

10355	Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch]
	Full Idea: Brandom says that facts do not make claims true, because facts simply are true claims.
	From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Making It Explicit [1994], p.327) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.18
	A reaction: Nice. Notoriously, anyone defending the correspondence theory of truth in terms of facts had better say what they mean by a 'fact'. Personally I take a fact to be a non-verbal, mind-independent situation in the world, so I disagree with Brandom.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

14296	Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine]
	Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition.
	From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3
	A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers?

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter

17402	Mendeleev saw three principles in nature: matter, force and spirit (where the latter seems to be essence) [Mendeleev, by Scerri]
	Full Idea: Mendeleev rejected one unifying principles in favour of three basic components of nature: matter (substance), force (energy), and spirit (soul). 'Spirit' is said to be what we now mean by essentialism - what is irreducibly peculiar to the object.
	From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making'

27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements

17399	Elements don't survive in compounds, but the 'substance' of the element does [Mendeleev]
	Full Idea: Neither mercury as a metal nor oxygen as a gas is contained in mercury oxide; it only contains the substance of the elements, just as steam only contains the substance of ice.
	From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870], I:23), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Nature'
	A reaction: [1889 edn] Scerri glosses the word 'substance' as meaning essence.

27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 3. Periodic Table

17400	Mendeleev focused on abstract elements, not simple substances, so he got to their essence [Mendeleev, by Scerri]
	Full Idea: Because he was attempting to classify abstract elements, not simple substances, Mendeleev was not misled by nonessential chemical properties.
	From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making'
	A reaction: I'm not fully clear about this, but I take it that Mendeleev stood back from the messy observations, and tried to see the underlying simpler principles. 'Simple substances' were ones that had not so far been decomposed.

17401	Mendeleev had a view of elements which allowed him to overlook some conflicting observations [Mendeleev]
	Full Idea: His view of elements allowed Mendeleev to maintain the validity of the periodic table even in instances where observational evidence seemed to point against it.
	From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making'
	A reaction: Mendeleev seems to have focused on abstract essences of elements, rather than on the simplest substances they had so far managed to isolate.