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Unobservable
An unobservable (also called impalpable) is an entity whose existence, nature, properties, qualities or relations are not directly observable by humans. In philosophy of science, typical examples of "unobservables" are the force of gravity, causation and beliefs or desires. The distinction between ''observable'' and ''unobservable'' plays a central role in Immanuel Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena as well as in John Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities. There is considerable disagreement about which objects should be classified as unobservable, for example, whether bacteria studied using microscopes or positrons studied using cloud chambers count as unobservable. Different notions of unobservability have been formulated corresponding to different types of obstacles to their observation. Kant on noumena The distinction between "observable" and "unobservable" is similar to Immanuel Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena. Noumena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontological Commitment
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines the commonalities among all things and investigates their classification into basic types, such as the categories of particulars and universals. Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, such as the person Socrates, whereas universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color ''green''. Another distinction exists between concrete objects existing in space and time, such as a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality by employing categories such as substance, property, relation, state of affairs, and event. Ontologists disagree re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines the commonalities among all things and investigates their classification into basic types, such as the Theory of categories, categories of particulars and Universal (metaphysics), universals. Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, such as the person Socrates, whereas universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color ''green''. Another distinction exists between Abstract and concrete, concrete objects existing in space and time, such as a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality by employing categories such as Substance t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; from ; : noumena) is knowledge posited as an Object (philosophy), object that exists independently of human sense. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''Phenomena (philosophy), phenomenon'', which refers to any Object (philosophy), object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise Epistemology, unknowable to us. In Kantianism, Kantian philosophy, the noumenon is often associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (). However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result. Etymology The Ancient Greek, Greek word (plural ) is the Ancient Greek grammar#Participles, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entity
An entity is something that Existence, exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is Life, animate, or present. The verb tense of this form is to 'entitize' - meaning to convert into an entity; to perceive as tangible or alive. The term is broad in scope and may refer to animals; natural features such as mountains; inanimate objects such as tables; numbers or sets as symbols written on a paper; human contrivances such as laws, corporations and academic disciplines; or supernatural beings such as gods and spirits. The adjectival form is ''entitative''. Etymology The word ''entity'' is derived from the Latin ''entitas'', which in turn derives from the Latin ''ens'' meaning "being" or "existing" (compare English ''essence''). ''Entity'' may hence literally be taken to mean "thing which exists". In philosophy Ontology is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Palmquist
Stephen Richard Palmquist (born 1957) is an American philosopher, currently living in Los Angeles. He taught philosophy at various universities in Hong Kong from 1987 to 2021. A Patheos article referred to him as "one of the greatest living interpreters of Kant". Education and career While attending Westmont College in the late 1970s, Palmquist worked as a part-time youth minister, a job that helped him realize that, instead of becoming a pastor, his real calling was to be a university teacher. Shortly after starting his doctoral studies at Oxford University in October 1980, he realized his calling was to be a philosopher. He completed his PhD in Philosophical Theology under the supervision of John Macquarrie and W. H. Walsh in August 1987. The next month he joined as faculty at Hong Kong Baptist University, at that point still named Baptist College. He played an important role in compiling e-text versions of the various writings of Immanuel Kant. He founded "Kant on the Web", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than purely using logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the " blank slate" concept (''tabula rasa''), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banach–Tarski Paradox
The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem in set-theoretic geometry, which states the following: Given a solid ball in three-dimensional space, there exists a decomposition of the ball into a finite number of disjoint subsets, which can then be put back together in a different way to yield two identical copies of the original ball. Indeed, the reassembly process involves only moving the pieces around and rotating them, without changing their original shape. However, the pieces themselves are not "solids" in the traditional sense, but infinite scatterings of points. The reconstruction can work with as few as five pieces. An alternative form of the theorem states that given any two "reasonable" solid objects (such as a small ball and a huge ball), the cut pieces of either one can be reassembled into the other. This is often stated informally as "a pea can be chopped up and reassembled into the Sun" and called the "pea and the Sun paradox". The theorem is a veridical paradox: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') is a freely available online philosophy resource published and maintained by Stanford University, encompassing both an online encyclopedia of philosophy and peer-reviewed original publication. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from many academic institutions worldwide. Authors contributing to the encyclopedia give Stanford University the permission to publish the articles, but retain the copyright to those articles. Approach and history As of August 5, 2022, the ''SEP'' has 1,774 published entries. Apart from its online status, the encyclopedia uses the traditional academic approach of most encyclopedias and academic journals to achieve quality by means of specialist authors selected by an editor or an editorial committee that is competent (although not necessarily considered specialists) in the field covered by the encyclopedia and peer review. The encyclopedia was created i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bas Van Fraassen
Bastiaan Cornelis "Bas" van Fraassen (; ; born 5 April 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. Biography and career Van Fraassen was born in the German-occupied Netherlands on 5 April 1941. His father, a steam fitter, was forced by the Nazis to work in a factory in Hamburg. After the war, the family reunited and, in 1956, emigrated to Edmonton, in western Canada. Van Fraassen earned his B.A. (1963) from the University of Alberta and his M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966, under the direction of Adolf Grünbaum) from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously taught at Yale University, the University of Southern California, the University of Toronto and, from 1982 to 2008, at Princeton University, where he is now emeritus. Since 2008, Van Fraasse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constructive Empiricism
In philosophy of science, constructive empiricism is a form of empiricism. While it is sometimes referred to as an empiricist form of structuralism, its main proponent, Bas van Fraassen, has consistently distinguished between the two views. Overview Bas van Fraassen is nearly solely responsible for the initial development of constructive empiricism; its historically most important presentation appears in his ''The Scientific Image'' (1980). Constructive empiricism states that scientific theories are semantically literal, that they aim to be empirically adequate, and that their acceptance involves, as belief, only that they are empirically adequate. A theory is empirically adequate if and only if everything that it says about observable entities is true (regardless of what it says about unobservable entities). A theory is semantically literal if and only if the language of the theory is interpreted in such a way that the claims of the theory are either true or false (as opposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instrumentalism
In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes. Scientific theory is merely a tool whereby humans predict ''observations'' in a particular domain of nature by formulating laws, which state or summarize regularities, while theories themselves do not reveal supposedly hidden aspects of nature that somehow ''explain'' these laws. Instrumentalism is a perspective originally introduced by Pierre Duhem in 1906.Roberto Torretti, ''The Philosophy of Physics'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)pp. 242–43 "Like Whewell and Mach, Duhem was a practicing scientist who devoted an important part of his adult life to the history and philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Realism
Scientific realism is the philosophical view that the universe described by science (including both observable and unobservable aspects) exists independently of our perceptions, and that verified scientific theories are at least approximately true descriptions of what is real. Scientific realists typically assert that science, when successful, uncovers true (or approximately true) knowledge about nature, including aspects of reality that are not directly observable. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The discussion on the success of science in this context centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make valid claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables, as opposed to instrumentalism. Main features Scientific realism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
