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    The explanatory model that infers hidden causes from visi... — Carmelics
    Home/Skepticism
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    The explanatory model that infers hidden causes from visible effects cannot secure the inference that same visible effects share the same hidden cause.

    CausationSkepticism
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Hume's problem of induction shows that no finite set of observed regularities can logically necessitate a universal causal law connecting effects to a single hidden cause.
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    • 2.Underdetermination of theory by evidence (Duhem-Quine) entails that multiple incompatible hidden causal structures can always account for the same observed effects equally well.
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    • 3.If rival hidden-cause hypotheses are empirically equivalent, no observable datum can privilege one over another, making the inference to a shared cause epistemically groundless.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Locke conceded in Essay II.xxiii that we have no positive idea of substance itself, only a supposition of 'something' supporting observable qualities, leaving hidden causes irreducibly opaque.
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    • 2.Because the content of any inferred hidden cause is derived solely from its postulated relation to visible effects, two distinct hidden causes producing identical effects are in principle indistinguishable by the inferential method itself.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.There is always a barrier in moving from sensible qualities to the structure of hidden qualities.
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    • 2.Experience of visible effects does not yield knowledge of the secret power by which one object produces another.
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    Related

    Because the content of any inferred hidden cause is derived solely from its post...Experience of visible effects does not yield knowledge of the secret power by wh...Hume's problem of induction shows that no finite set of observed regularities ca...If rival hidden-cause hypotheses are empirically equivalent, no observable datum...
    +3 moreShow less
    Locke conceded in Essay II.xxiii that we have no positive idea of substance itse...There is always a barrier in moving from sensible qualities to the structure of ...Underdetermination of theory by evidence (Duhem-Quine) entails that multiple inc...

    Similar

    The causes invoked by Aristotelian science are perceptible, not hidden79%Newton's Principle holds that from similar effects we can infer simila...78%Experience of visible effects does not yield knowledge of the secret p...78%A causal explanation based on an idealized model can still be explanat...77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: hume-newton
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    But as Hume discerns, the explanatory model of (i) lacks resources to secure anything like “same visible effect/same hidden cause”. That’s because Hume thinks there is always a barrier in moving from sensible qualities to the structure of hidden qualities. (In the literature on Newton, who also rejects (i), this is called the “transduction problem” since an influential article by McGuire 1970a.) Hume makes this point fully explicit in the first Enquiry: “he has not, by all his experience, acquir
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit