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Objective Homogeneity Relativized

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Joseph F. Hanna
Joseph F. Hanna*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

In his recent book Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World Wesley Salmon provides a detailed explication of objective homogeneity, a concept which is central to his Statistical-Relevance (S-R) model of explanation. One of the purposes of Salmon’s explication is to refute Hempel’s thesis of the epistemic relativity of statistical explanation. According to this thesis “the concept of statistical explanation for particular events is essentially relative to a given knowledge situation” (Hempel 1965, pp. 402-403, quoted in Salmon 1984, p. 48). Salmon introduces (1984, p. 55) the concept that forms the basis for his S-R model as follows: “A reference class A is homogeneous with respect to an attribute B provided there is no set of properties Ci (1 ≤i ≤ k; k ≥ 2) in terms of which A can be relevantly partitioned.

Type
Part VII. Probability And Causality
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 422 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

The present paper extends arguments developed in two of my previous papers (1981, 1983). The aim of those papers was to point out the serious implications for objectivist theories of probabilistic explanation and probabilistic causality of the fact that in an irreducibly stochastic world the objective probabilities of particular events evolve and so must be temporally relativized. Since there appears to be no objective basis for choosing the point in time relative to which the explanatorily or causally relevant probabilities should be computed (the choice will depend upon our pragmatic interests and concerns), the purported objectivity of those theories is undermined.

References

Hanna, J.F. (1981). “Single Case Propensities and the Explanation of Particular Events.” Synthese 20: 308–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanna, J.F. (1983). “Probabilistic Explanation and Probabilistic Causality.” In PSA 1982. Volume 2. Edited by Peter Asquith and Thomas Nickles. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association. Pages 181–193.Google Scholar
Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1971). Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W.C. (1984). Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar