Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Rationality of Science' and 'Is There a Marxist Doctrine?'

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

23 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
3859 We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith]
3870 The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith]
3853 For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
3854 Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith]
3855 Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
23877 Most people won't question an idea's truth if they depend on it [Weil]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
3861 Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith]
3869 More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
3867 De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
3872 We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
3857 Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
3858 A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 5. Anomalies
3862 All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith]
3864 Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith]
3863 The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
3865 Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability
3866 If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
23878 Weakness of will is the inadequacy of the original impetus to carry through the action [Weil]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / c. Reasons as causes
3871 Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
23879 In a violent moral disagreement, it can't be that both sides are just following social morality [Weil]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / b. Justice in war
23880 When war was a profession, customary morality justified any act of war [Weil]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]