Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'How the Laws of Physics Lie', 'On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians' and 'The Reasons of Love'

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


38 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 9. Normative Necessity
Love creates a necessity concerning what to care about [Frankfurt]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N]
Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N]
The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N]
Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N]
I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N]
You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
To explain a house we must describe its use, as well as its parts [Leibniz]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving
Active force is not just potential for action, since it involves a real effort or striving [Leibniz]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
Ranking order of desires reveals nothing, because none of them may be considered important [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
Morality isn't based on reason; moral indignation is quite unlike disapproval of irrationality [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / d. Subjective value
It is by caring about things that we infuse the world with importance [Frankfurt]
If you don't care about at least one thing, you can't find reasons to care about anything [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Our criteria for evaluating how to live offer an answer to the problem [Frankfurt]
What is worthwhile for its own sake alone may be worth very little [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
Love can be cool, and it may not involve liking its object [Frankfurt]
Rather than loving things because we value them, I think we value things because we love them [Frankfurt]
The paradigm case of pure love is not romantic, but that between parents and infants [Frankfurt]
I value my children for their sake, but I also value my love for them for its own sake [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
We might not choose a very moral life, if the character or constitution was deficient [Frankfurt]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / a. Nature of pleasure
People want to fulfill their desires, but also for their desires to be sustained [Frankfurt]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Loving oneself is not a failing, but is essential to a successful life [Frankfurt]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom
Boredom is serious, not just uncomfortable; it threatens our psychic survival [Frankfurt]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle
Freedom needs autonomy (rather than causal independence) - embracing our own desires and choices [Frankfurt]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
God's laws would be meaningless without internal powers for following them [Leibniz]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird]
Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N]
To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N]
Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / c. Forces
All qualities of bodies reduce to forces [Leibniz]
Power is passive force, which is mass, and active force, which is entelechy or form [Leibniz]