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For example, “All gases expand when heated; this gas was heated; therefore, this gas expanded". Statistical explanation, involves subsuming the explanandum under a generalization that gives it inductive support. For example, “Most people who use tobacco contract cancer; this person used tobacco; therefore, this person contracted cancer”.
For example, Newton's Law of Gravity is a mathematical equation that can be used to predict the attraction between bodies, but it is not a theory to explain how gravity works. [3] Stephen Jay Gould wrote that "...facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data.
The definition must not be obscure. The purpose of a definition is to explain the meaning of a term which may be obscure or difficult, by the use of terms that are commonly understood and whose meaning is clear. The violation of this rule is known by the Latin term obscurum per obscurius. However, sometimes scientific and philosophical terms ...
For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. Tropes (from Greek trepein, 'to turn') change the general meaning of words. An example of a trope is irony, which is the use of words to convey the opposite of their usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So are they all, all honorable men").
Reading this sentence, the only thing one can learn is a new word (soporific) that refers to a more common action (inducing sleep); it does not explain why opium causes that effect. A sentence that explains why opium induces sleep (or the same, why opium has soporific quality) could be the following one:
Natural meaning had to do with cause and effect, for example with the expression "these spots mean measles". Non-natural meaning, on the other hand, had to do with the intentions of the speaker in communicating something to the listener. In his essay, Logic and Conversation, Grice went on to explain and defend an explanation of how ...
For example, the classic example bachelor is said to be defined by unmarried and man. [5] An entity is a bachelor (by this definition) if and only if it is both unmarried and a man. To check whether something is a member of the class, you compare its qualities to the features in the definition. [10]
Deductive reasoning offers the strongest support: the premises ensure the conclusion, meaning that it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if all the premises are true. Such an argument is called a valid argument, for example: all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. For valid arguments, it is not important ...