Editing Unobservable (section)

{{Short description|Entity not directly observable by humans}}
An '''unobservable''' (also called '''impalpable''') is an [[wikt:entity|entity]] whose existence, nature, properties, qualities or relations are not directly [[perception|observable]] by humans. In [[philosophy of science]], typical examples of "unobservables" are the [[gravity|force of gravity]], [[causality|causation]] and [[belief]]s or [[Motivation|desires]].<ref>[[Jerry Fodor|Fodor, J. A.]], ''Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind'' ([[Cambridge, MA]] / [[London]]: [[MIT Press]], 1989), [https://books.google.com/books?id=3yoTDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=de&pg=PA7&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 7].</ref>{{rp|7}}<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dijk|first1=Bram van|title=Constructive Empiricism in the Social Sciences|date=2018|publisher=Utrecht University|page=54|url=http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/366525}}</ref> The distinction between ''observable'' and ''unobservable'' plays a central role in [[Immanuel Kant]]'s distinction between [[noumenon|noumena]] and [[phenomenon|phenomena]] as well as in [[John Locke]]'s distinction between [[Primary/secondary quality distinction|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.