Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Nancy Cartwright and Philolaus

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

27 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
16185 Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
472 No things would be clear to us as entity or relationships unless there existed Number and its essence [Philolaus]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
17503 Theories can never represent accurately, because their components are abstract [Cartwright,N, by Portides]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
16182 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
16184 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
16167 Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N]
16169 Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N]
16171 The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N]
16176 Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N]
16177 I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N]
16180 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 / j. Explanations by reduction
20653 Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
16183 In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
22511 Some reasonings are stronger than we are [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 4. Mathematical Nature
473 There is no falsehood in harmony and number, only in irrational things [Philolaus]
1519 Harmony must pre-exist the cosmos, to bring the dissimilar sources together [Philolaus]
1518 Everything must involve numbers, or it couldn't be thought about or known [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
469 Existing things, and hence the Cosmos, are a mixture of the Limited and the Unlimited [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
16175 A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
6781 There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird]
16166 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
16179 Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 6. Laws as Numerical
476 Self-created numbers make the universe stable [Philolaus]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16178 There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N]
16170 To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N]
16181 Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology
1787 Philolaus was the first person to say the earth moves in a circle [Philolaus, by Diog. Laertius]