Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Logical Foundations of Probability' and 'Through the Looking Glass'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

21982	I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
	Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
	From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
	A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation

13048	Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
	Full Idea: Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.
	From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1
	A reaction: [compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature

1748	Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
	From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

5989	Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
	Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
	From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
	A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.