The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of ScienceCambridge University Press, 1999/09/23 - 247 ページ It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this volume, Nancy Cartwright argues to the contrary. |
目次
Fundamentalism versus the patchwork of laws | 23 |
Fables and models | 35 |
Nomological machines and the laws they produce | 49 |
Laws and their limits The laws we test in physics | 75 |
Aristotelian natures and the modern experimental method | 77 |
Causal diversity causal stability | 104 |
Ceteris paribus laws and socioeconomic machines | 137 |
多く使われている語句
abstract argue argument assumption BCS theory behaviour Bloch electrons bridge principles capacities Cartwright causal laws causal relations causal structure causes ceteris paribus chance set-up chapter charge circumstances claims classical classical mechanics concepts conditional probability Consider Coulomb's law described discussion economics effect electrons empiricist equations example experiment fable fact factors Figure fixed force function fundamental generalisation give rise Glymour and Scheines graph Gravity Probe Hamiltonian happens harmonic oscillator Humean Ibid inference interpretation kind knowledge lattice laws of physics look magnetic Markov condition measurement method motion Newton's nomological machine occur occurrent properties operation particles phenomena philosophers precession predictions probabilistic probability problem produce quantities quantum mechanics quantum theory regular association represent scientific sense Simpson's paradox situations socio-economic machine specific Spirtes superconductivity supervenience supposed theoretical tion torque Towfic Shomar true universal variable
人気のある引用
16 ページ - The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.
11 ページ - But supposing, which is the real case with regard to man, that this creature is not antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence, benevolent and powerful, but is left to gather such a belief from the appearances of things; this entirely alters the case, nor will he ever find any reason for such a conclusion.
19 ページ - GLORY be to God for dappled things For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
19 ページ - Pied Beauty GLORY be to God for dappled things — For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how ?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
11 ページ - I will allow that pain or misery in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity, even in your sense of these attributes: what are you advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient. You must prove these pure, unmixed and uncontrollable attributes from the present mixed and confused phenomena, and from these alone. A hopeful undertaking!
16 ページ - The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other.
11 ページ - It must, I think, be allowed that, if a very limited intelligence whom we shall suppose utterly unacquainted with the universe were assured that it were the production of a very good, wise, and powerful Being, however finite, he would, from his conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find it to be by experience...
11 ページ - Supposing now that this person were brought into the world, still assured that it was the workmanship of such a sublime and benevolent Being, he might, perhaps, be surprised at the disappointment, but would never retract his former belief if founded on any very solid argument, since such a limited intelligence must be sensible of his own blindness and ignorance, and must allow that there may be many solutions of those phenomena which will for ever escape his comprehension.