Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'How the Laws of Physics Lie' and 'The Elements of Law'

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27 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
7396 Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
16185 Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
16638 The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
16688 Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes]
7405 Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
16182 Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
16184 An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16167 Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N]
16169 Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N]
16176 Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N]
16177 I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N]
16180 You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N]
16171 The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
16183 In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 1. Acting on Desires
7408 It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
7407 Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
7410 Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
7409 Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
16175 A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
6781 There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird]
16166 Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
16179 Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16170 To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N]
16181 Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N]
16178 There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 3. Deism
1558 Clearly the gods ignore human affairs, or they would have given us justice [Thrasymachus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
7411 The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes]