Inference to the best explanation in the catch-22: how much autonomy for Mill’s method of difference?
Tóm tắt
In his seminal Inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton adopted a causal view of explanation and a broadly Millian view of how causal knowledge is obtained. This made his account vulnerable to critics who charged that Inference to the Best Explanation is merely a dressed-up version of Mill’s methods, which in the critics’ view do the real inductive work. Lipton advanced two arguments to protect Inference to the Best Explanation against this line of criticism: the problem of multiple differences and the problem of inferred differences. Lipton claimed that these two problems show Mill’s method of difference to be largely unworkable unless it is embedded in an explanationist framework. Here I consider both arguments as well as the best Millian defense against them. Since the existing Millian defense is only partially successful, I will develop a new and improved account. As an integral part of the argument, I show that my solutions to the problems of multiple and inferred differences offer new insight into Lipton’s main case study: Ignaz Semmelweis’s discovery of the cause of childbed fever. I conclude that the method of difference can overcome Lipton’s challenges outside an explanationist framework.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Baumgartner, M. (2008). Regularity theories reassessed. Philosophia, 36(3), 327–354.
Baumgartner, M., & Graßhoff, G. (2004). Kausalität und kausales Schliessen: eine Einführung mit interaktiven Übungen. Bern: Bern Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science.
Bird, A. (2010). Eliminative abduction: examples from medicine. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 41, 345–352.
Gillies, D. (2005). Hempelian and Kuhnian approaches in the philosophy of medicine: the Semmelweis case. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(1), 159–181.
Glennan, S.S. (1996). Mechanisms and the nature of causation. Erkenntnis, 44(1), 49–71.
Graßhoff, G., & May, M. (2001). Causal regularities. In W. Spohn, M. Ledwig, M. Esfeld (Eds.), Current issues in causation (pp. 85–114). Mentis: Paderborn.
Hempel, C.G. (1966). Philosophy of natural science. Prentice Hall.
Herzfelder, H. (1850). Protokoll der allgemeinen Versammlung der k. k. Gesellschaft der Ärzte, vom 15. Mai 1850. Zeitschrift der k. k. Gesellschaft der Aerzte zu Wien, 6 (1), CXXXVI–CXLI.
Hofmann, U., & Baumgartner, M. (2011). Determinism and the method of difference. Theoria, 26(2), 155–176.
Howick, J.H. (2011). The philosophy of evidence-based medicine. Wiley-Blackwell.
Lakatos, I. (1970), Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos, A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 91–196). Cambridge University Press.
Lipton, P. (1991). Inference to the best explanation. London and New York: Routledge.
Lipton, P. (2004). Inference to the best explanation. London and New York: Routledge.
Machamer, P., Darden, L., Craver, C.F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 1–25.
Mackie, J. (1980). The cement of the universe: a study of causation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mill, J.S. (1843). A system of logic. London: John W. Parker.
Nickelsen, K., & Graßhoff, G. (2011). In pursuit of formaldehyde: Causally explanatory models and falsification. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42 (3), 297–305.
Rappaport, S. (1996). Inference to the best explanation: is it really different from Mill’s methods? Philosophy of Science, 63(1), 65–80.
Russo, F., & Williamson, J. (2007). Interpreting causality in the health sciences. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 21 (2), 157–170.
Scheines, R. (2005). The similarity of causal inference in experimental and non-experimental studies. Philosophy of Science, 72(5), 927–940.
Scholl, R. (2013). Causal inference, mechanisms, and the Semmelweis case. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 44(1), 66–76.
Semmelweis, I.P. (1861). Die Aetiologie, der Begriff und die Prophylaxis des Kindbettfiebers. C. A. Hartleben, Pest, Wien und Leipzig.
Semmelweis, I.P. (1983). The etiology, concept, and prophylaxis of childbed fever (Carter translation). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Woodward, J. (2003). Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press.