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.
Gist of Idea
Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations
Source
report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1
Book Reference
Psillos,Stathis: 'Causation and Explanation' [Acumen 2002], p.179
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.
Related Ideas
Idea 6352 Enumerative induction gives a universal judgement, while statistical induction gives a proportion [Pollock/Cruz]
Idea 18610 'Ampliative' induction infers that all members of a category have a feature found in some of them [Machery]