Crotchets & Quiddities
نویسندگان
چکیده
In science we routinely assume that whatever theory we may have about them, facts themselves are things that are—out there in the world to be observed. However, it has become rather standard for historians and philosophers to assert instead that “facts” are human constructs understandable only in a particular historical or societal context. They note that scientists typically argue over very different theories to interpret the same data. We in turn resist this deconstruction by outsiders who themselves don’t have to face the struggles of understanding Nature. Nonetheless, there may have been more than idle poetry in Keats’ assertion that “truth is beauty and that is all ye need to know.” Facts may be more determined by the theoretical lenses through which we view the world than we like to think.
منابع مشابه
CROTCHETS & QUIDDITIES What Stamps the Wrinkle Deeper on the Brow?
In a noteworthy 1935 book, Ludwik Fleck wrote that what science accepts and interprets as “fact” is not purely objective, but is a product of the history and underlying theory of the science at the time.1,2 Contextual and even subjective factors drive, mold, and constrain scientific inference more than we may realize. Fleck showed how scientific illustrations serve as ideograms that reflect but...
متن کاملQuidditism without Quiddities
Structuralism and quidditism are competing views of the metaphysics of property individuation: structuralists claim that properties are individuated by their nomological roles; quidditists claim that they are individuated by something else. This paper (1) refutes what many see as the best reason to accept structuralism over quidditism and (2) offers a methodological argument in favor of a quidd...
متن کاملCROTCHETS & QUIDDITIES Good Vibrations: The Silent Symphony of Life
Look at the life around you. Everywhere, you are confronted with modularity and repetition, from the leaves and branches on plants, to your hair and the skeletal and other structures within you. Modularity, segmentation, and repetition are, like measures and tones in music, the way in which the living opus has been assembled by the composing processes of evolution. In his elegant book Evolution...
متن کاملRedescription of Tharyx killariensis (Southern) from Ireland and description of two new species of Tharyx from the Kattegat, Sweden (Polychaeta, Cirratulidae).
Two new species of the cirratulid genus Tharyx are reported from shallow waters in the Kattegat inshore Sweden. In addition, the lectotype of Tharyx killariensis (Southern, 1914) is redescribed resulting in a revised concept of the noto- and neuropodial acicular spines of posterior parapodia for that species. These spines were originally reported as bidentate crotchets with sharply pointed teet...
متن کاملBiological Psychiatry Sketched—past, Present, and Future
It is a difficult task to capture the history of biological psychiatry in a brief essay. Let me frame this modest effort in a timeless humanistic perspective. Psychiatry is the study and treatment of troubled mental lives. Its ultimate goal is to heal broken spirits. At its core, it is an attempt to better understand human thoughts and emotions and to allow this understanding to inform the heal...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
دوره شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2003