Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Can Mechanisms Replace Laws of Nature?' and 'Principle of Life and Plastic Natures'

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


21 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Not all of perception is accompanied by consciousness [Leibniz]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan]
Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan]
We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan]
Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 5. Parallelism
Souls act as if there were no bodies, and bodies act as if there were no souls [Leibniz]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
Death and generation are just transformations of an animal, augmented or diminished [Leibniz]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 3. Natural Function
Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / a. Early Modern matter
Not all of matter is animated, any more than a pond full of living fish is animated [Leibniz]
Every particle of matter contains organic bodies [Leibniz]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities
Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof
Mechanics shows that all motion originates in other motion, so there is a Prime Mover [Leibniz]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
All substances are in harmony, even though separate, so they must have one divine cause [Leibniz]