Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Wagner', 'Explanation - Opening Address' and 'On the Law of War'

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17 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / a. Just wars
The only just cause for a war is a wrong received [Vitoria]
Leaders can only attack foreigners who have done wrong (as with their own subjects) [Vitoria]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / c. Combatants
Princes should not justify a war to their subjects, and doing so would undermine the state [Vitoria]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / d. Non-combatants
Sacking a city is lawful if it motivates the attacking troops [Vitoria]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / a. Early Modern matter
Bare or primary matter is passive; it is clothed or secondary matter which contains action [Leibniz]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]