18 ideas
17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
14919 | Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality [Fraassen] |
6783 | To 'accept' a theory is not to believe it, but to believe it empirically adequate [Fraassen, by Bird] |
17073 | I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart] |
14917 | To accept a scientific theory, we only need to believe that it is empirically adequate [Fraassen] |
17077 | The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart] |
17078 | Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart] |
17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart] |
17074 | Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart] |
17076 | Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart] |
17071 | An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart] |
17062 | If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart] |
17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
6784 | Why should the true explanation be one of the few we have actually thought of? [Fraassen, by Bird] |
13066 | An explanation is just descriptive information answering a particular question [Fraassen, by Salmon] |
6649 | Chomsky now says concepts are basically innate, as well as syntax [Chomsky, by Lowe] |
17063 | Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart] |