J.S. Mill’s Canons of Induction: from True Causes to Provisional Ones

History and Philosophy of Logic 29 (4):361-376 (2008)
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Abstract

In this essay, my aim is twofold: to clarify how the late Mill conceived of the certainty of inductive generalizations and to offer a systematic clarification of the limited domain of application of the Mill’s Canons of Induction. I shall argue that Mill’s views on the certainty of knowledge changed overtime and that this change was accompanied by a new view on the certainty of the inductive results yielded by the Canons of Induction. The key message of the later editions of The System of Logic as conceived by the late Mill was no longer that by the Canons of Induction we can establish scientific certainty and true causes, but rather that the Canons are useful in establishing causal laws in a provisional way.

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Steffen Ducheyne
University of Ghent

Citations of this work

Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard.Raphael Scholl - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 82 (C):120-130.
A Decision Logic Approach to Mill’s Eliminative Induction.Dariusz Piętka & Paweł Stacewicz - 2015 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 42 (1):113-138.

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The collected works of John Stuart Mill.John Stuart Mill - 2006 - Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund.

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