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15255
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Conjunctions explain nothing, and so do not give a reason for confidence in inductions [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
'Going together' is irrelevant as an explanation, and that is precisely why it is useless as a reason for having confidence in inductive inferences.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.I)
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A reaction:
I suspect that the deep underlying question is whether the actual world has modal features - that is, are dispositions, rather than mere categorical properties, a feature of the actual. Is this room full of possibilities? Yes, say I.
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15284
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Contraposition may be equivalent in truth, but not true in nature, because of irrelevant predicates [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
The question about Hempel's Paradox is whether contraposition is not only equivalent in truth, but equivalent tout court. It forcibly inserts new predicates into a context of properties known to be connected by nature.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
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A reaction:
[compressed] This seems to capture quite nicely the intuition most people have (which makes it a 'paradox') that the equivalent predicate is irrelevant to the immediate enquiry. The paradox is good because it forces the present explanation.
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15285
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The items put forward by the contraposition belong within different natural clusters [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
If empirical predicates are linked in clusters, contraposition of (black, raven) would carry one via such pairs as (shoe, white) into a different empirical cluster, or no cluster at all.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
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A reaction:
This is, of course, addressed to Hempel's Raven Paradox. Those paradoxes now strike me as relics of a time when Humean empiricism and logic were thought to be the best approaches to scientific theory. Harré and Madden pioneered a better view.
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