Concept
Unobservable
Overview
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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The determinations of a substance, which are only particular modes of its existence, are called accidents. They are always real, because they concern the existence of substance (negations are only determinations, which express the non-existence of something in the substance). Now, if to this real in the substance we ascribe a particular existence (for example, to motion as an accident of matter), this existence is…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Unobservable is; the author is tied to Unobservable in the knowledge graph.
This complementary association is met with in a striking manner, when a real assimilation is hindered by the associated elements belonging to different senses. In this case the difference in sense-quality erects, as it were, a partition-wall, which prevents the unobservable union of the elements. But at the same time even then close combinations can be formed, which at the operation of a sense-impression immediately…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Unobservable is; names Unobservable.
If the intuition is _a priori_ this is called construction; but if it is empirical, then the Object is displayed by means of which objective reality is assured to the concept. Thus we say of an anatomist that he demonstrates the human eye, if by a dissection of this organ he makes intuitively evident the concept which he has previously treated discursively. It hence follows that the rational concept of the…
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
States what Unobservable is; the author is tied to Unobservable in the knowledge graph.
Related ideas
- Noumenon
- Belief
- Bas van Fraassen
- Immanuel Kant
- John Locke
- London
- Motivation
- Perception
- Instrumentalism
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Philosophy of science
- Causality
- Jerry Fodor
- Phenomenon
- Thing-in-itself
- MIT Press
- Constructive empiricism
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Deductive-nomological model.