40 ideas
13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
23154 | We divide mankind into friend and foe, and cooperate with one and compete with the other [Russell] |
23153 | Gradually loyalty to a creed increased, which could even outweigh nationality [Russell] |
23152 | Increasingly war expands communities, and unifies them through fear [Russell] |
23155 | In early societies the leaders needed cohesion, but the rest just had to obey [Russell] |
23156 | The economic and political advantages of great size seem to have no upper limit [Russell] |
23157 | Government has a negative purpose, to prevent trouble, and a positive aim of realising our desires [Russell] |
23151 | A monarch is known to everyone in the group, and can thus unite large groups [Russell] |
23167 | Power should be with smaller bodies, as long as it doesn't restrict central powers [Russell] |
23168 | A state is essential, to control greedy or predatory impulses [Russell] |
23163 | In an anarchy universities, research, books, and even seaside holidays, would be impossible [Russell] |
23166 | In democracy we are more aware of being governed than of our tiny share in government [Russell] |
23162 | Managers are just as remote from workers under nationalisation as under capitalism [Russell] |
23165 | Socialists say economic justice needs some state control of industries, and of foreign trade [Russell] |
23160 | Being a slave of society is hardly better than being a slave of a despot [Russell] |
23158 | Slavery began the divorce between the work and the purposes of the worker [Russell] |
23161 | Slaves can be just as equal as free people [Russell] |
23159 | Scarce goods may be denied entirely, to avoid their unequal distribution [Russell] |
23164 | Modern justice is seen as equality, apart from modest extra rewards for exceptional desert [Russell] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |