16975
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Essences are used to explain natural kinds, modality, and causal powers [Tahko]
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Full Idea:
Essences are supposed to do a lot of explanatory work: natural kinds can be identified in terms of their essences, metaphysical modality can be reduced to essence, the causal power of objects can be explained with the help of essence.
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From:
Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 1)
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A reaction:
Natural kinds and modality are OK with me, but I'm dubious about the third one. If an essence explains something's causal powers, I have no idea what an essence might be. Essence are largely characterised in terms of causal powers.
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4800
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Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos]
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Full Idea:
Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction.
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From:
report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1
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A reaction:
The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms.
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16977
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If essence is modal and laws are necessary, essentialist knowledge is found by scientists [Tahko]
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Full Idea:
If essence is conceived in terms of modality and the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, it seems that the laws of nature constitute essentialist knowledge, so the discovery of essences is mostly due to scientists.
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From:
Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 2.1)
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A reaction:
This seems muddled to me. The idea that the laws themselves are essences is way off target. No one thinks all knowledge of necessities is essentialist. Mumford, for example, doesn't even believe in laws.
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