Transitional Arguments
In epistemology, transitional arguments attempt to show that a particular explanation is better than another because it is able to make sense of a transition from old to new. That is, if explanation b can account for the problems that existed with explanation a, but not vice versa, then b is regarded to be the more reasonable explanation. A common example in the history of science is the transition from pre-Galilean to Galilean understandings of physical motion.
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Famous quotes containing the words transitional and/or arguments:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“We are seeing an increasing level of attacks on the “selfishness” of women. There are allegations that all kinds of social ills, from runaway children to the neglected elderly, are due to the fact that women have left their “rightful” place in the home. Such arguments are simplistic and wrongheaded but women are especially vulnerable to the accusation that if society has problems, it’s because women aren’t nurturing enough.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)