33 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] |
12790 | Generalisations must be invariant to explain anything [Leuridan] |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
12789 | Biological functions are explained by disposition, or by causal role [Leuridan] |
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] |
14386 | Mechanisms are ontologically dependent on regularities [Leuridan] |
12787 | Mechanisms can't explain on their own, as their models rest on pragmatic regularities [Leuridan] |
14384 | We can show that regularities and pragmatic laws are more basic than mechanisms [Leuridan] |
14388 | Mechanisms must produce macro-level regularities, but that needs micro-level regularities [Leuridan] |
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] |
14389 | There is nothing wrong with an infinite regress of mechanisms and regularities [Leuridan] |
14387 | Rather than dispositions, functions may be the element that brought a thing into existence [Leuridan] |
14382 | Pragmatic laws allow prediction and explanation, to the extent that reality is stable [Leuridan] |
14385 | Strict regularities are rarely discovered in life sciences [Leuridan] |
14383 | A 'law of nature' is just a regularity, not some entity that causes the regularity [Leuridan] |
16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |