74 ideas
13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
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] |
3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |