Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Philosophy and Politics' and 'Chemistry'

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16 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
Supervenience is simply modally robust property co-variance [Hendry]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
Nuclear charge (plus laws) explains electron structure and spectrum, but not vice versa [Hendry]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 5. Democracy / f. Against democracy
Democratic institutions become impossible in a fanatical democracy [Russell]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / a. Liberalism basics
Liberal opinions are tentative rather than dogmatic, and are always responsive to new evidence [Russell]
Empiricist Liberalism is the only view for someone who favours scientific evidence and happiness [Russell]
Empiricism is ethically superior, because dogmatism favours persecution and hatred [Russell]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 2. Defining Kinds
Maybe two kinds are the same if there is no change of entropy on isothermal mixing [Hendry]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
Maybe the nature of water is macroscopic, and not in the microstructure [Hendry]
The nature of an element must survive chemical change, so it is the nucleus, not the electrons [Hendry]
Maybe water is the smallest part of it that still counts as water (which is H2O molecules) [Hendry]
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 1. Chemistry
Compounds can differ with the same collection of atoms, so structure matters too [Hendry]
Water continuously changes, with new groupings of molecules [Hendry]
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements
Elements survive chemical change, and are tracked to explain direction and properties [Hendry]
Defining elements by atomic number allowed atoms of an element to have different masses [Hendry]
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 3. Periodic Table
Generally it is nuclear charge (not nuclear mass) which determines behaviour [Hendry]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 3. Deism
Clearly the gods ignore human affairs, or they would have given us justice [Thrasymachus]