Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cartwright, N. | Laudan Vs Cartwright, N. | Cartwright I 94 Beste Erklärung/Larry LaudanVsCartwright: (in Korrespondenz): die Unterscheidung zwischen wahrscheinlichster Ursache und bester Erklärung ist nur deswegen plausibel, weil Cartwright (anscheinend willkürlich) auf einer Unterscheidung einer pragmatischen Sicht theoretischer Gesetze und einer nicht-pragmatischen Sicht von Ursachen besteht. CartwrightVsVs: das ist nicht willkürlich: Bsp zwei Sichtweisen von Erklärung, die a) dem deduktiv-nomologischen Modell (D-N) und b) dem Duhemschen Modell zugrunde liegen. I 97 LaudanVsBeste Erklärung: sie führt zu oft zu falschen Konklusionen: in der Geschichte der Wissenschaften waren sie meist falsch. Und dieses Problem betrifft auch theoretische Gesetze und theoretische Entitäten. Cartwright/Laudan: wir wollen wissen, was die epistemische Differenz zwischen Belegen für ein theoretisches Gesetz und den Belegen für theoretische Entitäten ist. Vielleicht sind beide epistemologisch auf einer Stufe. theoretische Entität/Laudan: Bsp haben die Erfolge der Ein- bzw. Zwei-Flüssigkeiten-Theorien der Elektrizität etwa gezeigt, daß es eine elektrische Flüssigkeit gibt? ((s) Erfolg einer Theorie beweist nicht ihre Wahrheit). CartwrightVsLaudan: 1. die Fehlschläge der Besten Erklärung in der Geschichte sind weit seltener als Laudan sagt. ((s) >Argument, >Argumentform). 2. (s.o.) bei Kausalerklärungen sind wir auf die Existenz dieser Ursachen verpflichtet. |
Laud I L. Laudan Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth 1978 Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR I R. Cartwright A Neglected Theory of Truth. Philosophical Essays, Cambridge/MA pp. 71-93 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 |
| Cartwright, N. | Simons Vs Cartwright, N. | I 125 Four Dimensionalism/Cartwright: (1975, p. 167): "four dimensional objects have different careers." SimonsVsCartwright: only continuants as generals or opera singers have careers. Four-dimensional objects have no career, they are at best a career. Problem: if now continuants should disappear from the ontology then there is nothing from which something can be a career. This is speaking with a "forked tongue": you cannot enjoy the benefits of the old entities when abolishing them. The four-dimensionalism needs a whole new (unfamiliar, everyday language contradictory) manner of speaking. Whitehead/Simons: Whitehead is the only one who sits through this and he is literally obscure. |
Simons I P. Simons Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987 |
| Creary, L | Cartwright Vs Creary, L | I 62 Factual View/Causal forces/Lewis Creary/Cartwright: Creary tries to maintain separate causal laws and at the same time to save the facts-view by postulating an intermediate effect: physical laws/Creary: Thesis: there are two types of them: a) Laws on causal influence: E.g. law of gravity. Coulomb’s Law: they tell us, what forces or other causal impacts become effective in different circumstances. b) Laws about causal action: ("Action laws"): they tell us what results arise from such combinations. E.g. law of vector addition, provides satisfactory explanations. Composition/Creary: less satisfactory types: E.g. amplification, interference, elimination (predomination). I 63 Truth/Physical laws/Creary/Cartwright: according to Creary these laws are true, because they correctly describe what influences are produced. Truth/Law/CartwrightVsCreary: this is a plausible representation of the structure of many causal explanations, but it has two disadvantages: 1) often there are no general laws of interaction. The dynamics of the vector addition is fortunate in this regard. Problem: irreversible processes: flux, Laws of transport (heat transport) distribution functions. The equations in statistical mechanics do not apply in 90% of cases. (Kline, Similitude and Approximation, NY, 1969, p. 140). I 65 Creary/Cartwright: his action laws (which provide the resulting overall behavior) only apply to individual cases. CartwrightVsCreary: better correct laws like Fick’s law. Nature/Cartwright: should rather be described by many phenomenological laws which are tailored to individual situations, than ruled by first principles. (s) VsCartwright: there can be no laws for individual situations (specific situations). CartwrightVsCreary: 2) causal influence: E.g. resulting force in vector addition: Creary: Thesis: there is no force that results, but a movement (behavior). With that we can deny the reality of a resulting force. Cartwright: We both agree that there cannot be three forces: the first two, and in addition the resulting one. CartwrightVsCreary: but I assert the reality of the resulting force while Creary asserts the component forces. Causal influence/Creary: is an intermediary factor between cause and what was initially thought to be the effect. CartwrightVsCreary: this will not work in general. E.g. two laws: a) C causes E b) C’ causes E’. In addition: C and C’ together cause E’’. Then we do not want to assume three effects E, E ’and E’’, but we need to assume some other incidents F and F’ as the actual effects of the two laws a) and b). And, according to another law, these will produce E’’. CartwrightVsCreary: this can work in individual cases, but not always. I see no reason why such intermediate factors should be found all the time. These seem to me more shadowy. |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 |
| Four-Dimensionalism | Chisholm Vs Four-Dimensionalism | Simons I 120 Object/Thing/Chisholm: Thesis: "mereological constance objects in the original sense: entia per se: cannot change. Objects in the derived sense: Entia per alio: are subject to flux, but only in the sense that they are successively constituted by different entia per se, which differ in their parts. Continuants/Chisholm: he does not deny them! Rather ChisholmVsFour-Dimensionalism (because of his ontology of temporal objects). Simons I 124 Event/occurrents/Ontology/Chisholm/Simons: Chisholm disproves three arguments for the ontology of events (occurrences): (Chisholm 1976, Appendix A) 1. Argument of spatial analogy: there is a great disanalogy between space and time: a thing cannot be in two different places at the same time, but a thing can be in the same place at two different times. ChisholmVs: this is not conclusive, a defender of temporal parts can argue against it. But then he can use this argument to argue for his thesis without circularity. 2. Argument of change (change): for example, how can Philip be drunk once and sober once? For him, both are contradictory together. ChisholmVsFour-Dimensionalism/Solution: instead of saying a time stage of Philip is (timelessly) drunk, we simply say in everyday language: he was drunk last night and is now sober. Either we use grammatical times as in everyday language, or we relativize our predicates to the time ((s) "have-at-t", "be-at-t"). 3. Argument of the river (not "flux-argument"): Example River/QuineVsHeraclitus: Quine uses the temporal extension of the river on the same level as the spatial extension. ChisholmVsQuine: not every sum of river stages is a river process. I 125 Solution/Chisholm: we have to say what conditions a sum has to meet to be a river process. ChisholmVsQuine: Problem: this again requires continuants: (river banks, human observers) or a theory of absolute space or the introduction of a technical term ((s) predicate) "is cofluvial with"). Problem: this can only be understood in terms of "is the same flux as". So circular. VsFour-Dimensionalism/VsProcess-Ontology: he did not succeed in eliminating all singular or general terms that denote continuants. Process-Ontology/Four-Dimensionalism/SimonsVsProcess-Ontology: all representatives except Whitehead speak with a "split tongue" when it comes to concrete examples. Continuants/Quine: says he can "reconstruct them four-dimensionally". "Describe them as new". Reconstruction/Redescription/SimonsVsQuine: when something is rewritten, it gets a new description. Reconstruction is strictly speaking a discarding. So continuants must then disappear from our ontology and something else must take their place. Problem: thus, it is misleading to speak of river stages or cat stages. E.g. not one Philip stage is drunk, but the whole person is. For example, one does not bathe in one river stage, but in the whole river. Error: it cannot be right to change the subject and leave the predicate unchanged, and think you still have a true sentence! Similarly: Four-Dimensionalism/Cartwright: (1975,p. 167) "four dimensional objects have different careers". SimonsVsCartwright: only continuants like generals or opera singers have careers. Four-dimensional objects have no career, they are at best a career. Problem: if continuants are to disappear from ontology, then there is nothing that can be a career. That is talking with a "split tongue": you cannot enjoy the advantages of the old entities if you abolish them. Four-Dimensionalism needs a whole new way of speaking (unfamiliar, contrary to everyday language). Whitehead/Simons: is the only one who can do this and it is literally obscure. I 126 Process-Ontology/Simons: all this does not show their impossibility, only their alien nature. We must not only adopt continuants, but also events that involve them, especially changes of continuants. SimonsVsProcess-Ontology/SimonsVsVsFour-Dimensionalism: that the space-time requires the task of continuants is not so sure and rather depends on the circumstances. Certainly, Minkowski diagrams simply represent time as another (equal) dimension. I 127 Argument/Simons: it is not a conclusive argument to derive an ontology from a convenient representation. |
Chisholm I R. Chisholm The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981 German Edition: Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992 Chisholm II Roderick Chisholm In Philosophische Aufsäze zu Ehren von Roderick M. Ch, Marian David/Leopold Stubenberg Amsterdam 1986 Chisholm III Roderick M. Chisholm Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989 German Edition: Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004 Simons I P. Simons Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987 |
| Grice, P.H. | Cartwright Vs Grice, P.H. | I 129 As if/Physics/Cartwright: (from a seminar by Grice): Is there an "as-if-operator" in physics? Grice: E.g. a) helium gas behaves as if it were a collection of molecules that interact only in case of collision. b) ... helium gas is composed of molecules that behave as if they only interacted in case of collisions. CartwrightVsGrice: early: at the time I made objections that only apparently contradicted this: There are well known cases with the "as-if" operator. E.g. the radiating molecules in an ammonium-Maser behave as if they were normal electronic oscillators. As if/False realism: realistic question: how densely are the oscillators packed? VsRealism: this question is absurd, normal electron oscillators themselves are a mere theoretical construct, a fiction! The behavior of atoms is amazingly similar to a normal electron oscillator. Helium-neon laser/Cartwright: (...) behaves as if it were a collection of 3-level atoms(...). I 130 As if/Behavior/Existence/Ontology/Explanation/Theory/Cartwright: early: but by saying "as if", I do not deny the existence of 3-level atoms in this situation! I recognize these existential facts, and yet put the "as-if operator" in front of them! CartwrightVsCartwright: later: back then I confused two functions that the as-if the operator may have: as-if-operator/Cartwright: a) writing things left from the as-if-operator means to enter into an existential commitment. E.g. ... molecules as if ... b) things to the right of the as-if operator: have a different function: what is at the right side (a description) is what we need to know in order to be able to apply a mathematical formulation. Description/Equation/Law/Physics/Cartwright: the description on the right side is the kind of description for which the theory provides an equation. E.g. we say a "real quantum atom" behaves like a normal electron oscillator. The theory tells us beforehand which equation this oscillator obeys. I 131 Description/Equation/Theory/Cartwright: it might be assumed: in order to obtain a description according to which we can establish it, we must depart from what we assume to exist. (to be the case). CartwrightVs: it but does not work like that: Principles/Theory/Cartwright: the theory has only few principles to get from descriptions of equations. And these principles certainly demand structured information. And the "descriptions" on the right side must satisfy many mathematical requirements. Description/Theory/Equations/Cartwright: thesis: the descriptions that best describe are just not the ones which best apply to the equations. |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 |
| Mill, J. St. | Cartwright Vs Mill, J. St. | I 38 Objective probability/VsCartwright: It might be objected that the partitioning on irrelevant factors would do no damage, once all factors are fixed. "True prob"/Cartwright: = objective prob? Relative frequency/RelFreq/Cartwright: is not the same as objective prob. Simpson’s Paradox/Solution/VsCartwright: We can certainly always find a third factor, but normally we do are not dealing with finite frequencies, but with objective prob. Objective prob/VsCarwright: if you do not extract it from finite data, no apparent correlations will come about. I 60 Vector addition/Cartwright: according to this view, two forces (gravitational force, or electromagnetic force) are produced, but none of them exists. Composition of forces/Causes/MillVsCartwright: he would deny that both do not exist: According to him, both exist as part of the resulting effect. E.g. two forces in different directions. "Partial forces". CartwrightVsMill: there are no "partial forces". Events may have temporal parts, but there are no parts of the kind that Mill describes, e.g. one northwards and one eastwards, with the object not moving neither north nor east, but to the northeast. I 59 CartwrightVsMill: Problem: then it is vital for the laws to have the same form, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the composition. And that’s not possible! It is not possible if the laws are intended to describe the actual behavior of concrete object. I 70 Def Super-Law/Explanation/Law/Circumstances/Terminology/Mill/Cartwright: in the case of E.g. Coulomb’s law and the law of gravity, we can simply put an increasingly complex antecedent in front of it to grasp the situation and thus explain what is happening. Mill: that is possible in mechanics, but not in chemistry. This explains why chemistry is not a deductive or demonstrative discipline. This presupposes the covering-law approach. CartwrightVsSuper law/CartwrightVsMill: 1) Super laws are not always available; if we do not describe everything exactly, we lose our understanding of what is happening. And we explain without knowing super laws. We need a philosophical explanation for why these explanations are good. 2) Super laws may often not even be a good explanation. This is an old objection Vscovering laws. E.g. why does the quail in my garden shake its head? Because all quails do this. I 71 Equally E.g. "All carbon atoms have five energy levels" explains nothing. 3) Certainly, covering laws are explanatory for complex cases. In particular, if the antecedent of the law does not precisely grasp the components of the individual situation, but provides a more abstract description. |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 |
| Rousseau, J. J. | Cartwright Vs Rousseau, J. J. | I 21 Laws of Nature/Cartwright: There are at least two kinds: a) Laws of association/Association/Hume/Cartwright: they are the ones with which philosophy deals normally. They tell us how many times two qualities or quantities are co-associated. ((s) occur together?). This may be probabilistic or deterministic. This includes the equations of physics: E.g.: whenever the force on an object with the mass m is f, the acceleration is f/m. The laws of association may have a time index. E.g. the probabilistic Mendelian laws. Causality: does not matter here, instead: co-occurrence. b) Causal laws/Cartwright: E.g. Smoking causes cancer, e.g. force causes a change in movement. ((s) different from above!). Russell: Thesis: 1) there are only laws of association. 2) Causal principles cannot be derived from causally symmetric laws of association. Cartwright: Vs 1) pro 2) Causal principles/CartwrightVsRussell: Although they cannot be derived from laws of association, we cannot do without them. This has to do with our strategies. I 74 CartwrightVsRussell: I prefer causes rather than laws in science and explanation. I 111 Law/Cause/Effect/Analogy/Russell: (On the Notion of Cause, NY 1953 p 392): the principle of "same cause, same effect" is pointless. Once the antecedent (which represents the circumstances) is determined accurately enough to allow calculating the consequences, it becomes so complex that it is unlikely that the case ever occurs again! This would make science sterile. Fundamental laws/RussellVsCartwright: with that Russell pleads for fundamental laws. Fundamental laws/CartwrightVsRussell: the fundamental laws represent more the relations between properties than between individuals. But in practice the engineer wants functional laws, albeit only "with a certain accuracy". |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 |
| Various Authors | Cartwright Vs Various Authors | I 79 Mathematical explanation/Quantum damping/Agarwal: Important argument: There are six different approaches here with six different equations! (>Redundancy, alternative explanation). I 80 For example, There are various versions of the Schroedinger equation. I 81 Equation/Theoretical explanation/Laws/Cartwright: Thesis: these (alternative, redundant) explanations do not determine any objective laws. Equations/CartwrightVsAgarwal: the alternative equations are in competition with each other. They offer a variety of laws for the same phenomenon. AgarwalVsCartwright: he thinks that different approaches serve different purposes. That means they do not compete. I 94 Laws/Include/Explanation/Laws of Nature/LoN/Grünbaum: ("Science and Ideology", The Scientific Monthly, July 1954, p 13-19): while a more comprehensive law G contains a less comprehensive law L, and thus provides an explanation, it is not the cause of L. Laws are not explained by showing that the regularities which they assert arise from a causation, but that their truth is a special case of a more comprehensive truth. CartwrightVsGrünbaum: In this, it is assumed that the fundamental laws make the same assertions as the concrete ones which explain them. I 95 This then depends on the phenomenological laws being derived from the fundamental ones (>deduction >deductive) if the situation is specified. If the phenomenological laws are right, then the fundamental ones are too, at least in that situation. Problem: there is still a problem of induction: do the fundamental laws make correct generalizations about situations? Explanatory laws/Explanation/Cartwright: the explanatory laws are to explain the phenomenological ones and therefore a variety of other phenomenological laws in other situations. But they are much more economical (because they do not need to specify the special situations). Measuring/Reality/Realistic/Real/Cartwright: if we want to know which properties are real in a theory, we must look for the causal role. I 182 Measuring/Quantum Mechanics/QM/Problem: the static values of dynamic variables have no effect. Only if systems exchange energy, momentum or another conserved quantity, something happens in the QM. E.g. knowing the position of a particle, does not say anything about his future conduct. The detector only responds to a change in energy. Measuring/QM/Henry Margenau/Cartwright: (Margenau, Phil.of Science 4 (1937) p 352-6): Thesis: all measurements in QM are ultimately position measurements. Cartwright: but position measurements themselves are ultimately registrations of interactions at the destruction. This is inelastic, that is, the energy is not conserved in the particles. That means the detector absorbs the energy of the particle. This causes the detector to be ionized. Transitional prob/CartwrightVsMargenau: Solution: So it’s about the prob that the ionization of the detector takes place. Problem: there could be background radiation which causes the ionization without particles. Or, conversely, the disc could be ineffective, so that the energy of the particle is not registered. I 183 Problem/Cartwright: Another problem: the energy must be adequate. This could lead to inconsistencies. Soret effect: here we only need to assume simple linear additivity in our law of action, and we obtain a cross-over effect by adding a thermal diffusion factor to Fick’s law. Unfortunately this does not work for any random influences in the "Transport Theory" (heat transfer, etc.). I 65 Cross-over effect/Cartwright:. There is only one failed attempt to establish general principles for cross-over effects: by Onsager, 1931, further developed in the 1950s. But this was merely a Procrustes-like attempt that explains nothing new. VsOnsager: His principles are empty because they have to be interpreted once in one way and another time in a different way. They may not be followed literally, too much of it is up to the physicist’s imagination. Principle: is empty if it has to be interpreted differently on different occasions. I 174th Schroedinger equation/CartwrightVsSchroedinger equation: Problem: according to it, the electron in the accelerator has neither a particular direction nor a particular energy - SE is refuted daily by reducing the wave packet - not by measurement, but by preparation. I 75 Science/Explanation/Cartwright: the framework of modern physics is mathematical and good explanations will always allow precise calculations. Explanation/Rene Thom: (1972, p 5): Descartes: his vortexes and atom chains explained everything and calculated nothing. Newton: calculated everything and explained nothing. CartwrightVsThom: in modern science we have to keep causal and theoretical explanation apart as well, but they work differently: If we accept Descartes’ causal story, we must accept his assertions of linked atoms and vortexes as true. But we do not assume Newton’s law on the inverse square of the distance to be true or false. |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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| Quantity | Cartwright, N. | I 128 Quantity/Cartwright: early: Thesis: in nature there are no quantities at all, no attributes with exact numerical values that could be said to be equal or unequal to each other. Nevertheless, matter is certainly composed of real atoms, molecules, etc. with specific masses, spins, charges, etc.. I said then that these processes were qualitative because our knowledge of them cannot be expressed in simple quantitative equations. CartwrightVsCartwright: (self-criticism) later: this distinction was not between quantity and quality, but between the narrow mathematical equations of theory and the intricate descriptions with which we must express our knowledge of what happens in real systems. |
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