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Larry Laudan Source: the Monist, Vol WILLIAM WHEWELL ON THE CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS Author(s): Larry Laudan Source: The Monist, Vol. 55, No. 3, British Philosophy in the 19th Century (JULY, 1971), pp. 368 -391 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27902225 Accessed: 24-07-2015 23:58 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Monist. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:58:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WILLIAM WHEWELL ON THE CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS* Most contributions toWhewell scholarship have tended to stress the idealistic, antiempirical temper ofWhewell's philosophy. Thus, on the only two monograph-length studies Whewell, Blanch?'s Le Rationalisme de Whewell (1935) and Marcucci's L' 'Idealismo' as Scientifico di William Whewell (1963), are, their titles suggest, concerned primarily with Whewell's departures from classical Brit ish empiricism. Particularly in his famous dispute with Mill, it has to proved tempting parody Whewell's position in the debate by an treating it as a straightforward encounter between arch-empiri cist and an arch-rationalist. There is, however, a danger that an on a emphasis the necessitarian and priori elements inWhewell's philosophy may well obscure the unmistakable empirical emphasis inWheweirs theory of science. I think it is time to begin to redress the balance, by focusing attention on the significant 'empiricist* strains inWhewell's philosophy of science. One of the most impor tant of those strains is connected with the operation which Whewell calls 'the consilience of inductions'. Indeed, of all the fanciful neologisms which Whewell coined (including 'the colligation of facts', 'the explication of conceptions', 'the decomposition of facts' and 'the superinduction of concep a more tions') , none denoted fertile methodological process nor a more con important doctrine inWhewell's methodology, than 'the more silience of inductions'. This fact alone would than justify a a close scrutiny of this doctrine. However, fuller understanding of on the nature ofWhewell's views consilience is not only vital to a comprehension of his philosophy of science, but is also the key to his historiography of science, for it is largely in terms of consiliences This research was supported in part by a grant-in-aid from the American am to Council of Learned Societies. I very grateful the following friends and on colleagues for helpful comments earlier drafts of this paper: R. Butts, A. Michalos and J. Schneewind. This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:58:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WHEWELL ON CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS 369 that Whewell formulates his theory of the progressive nature of scientific growth and evolution. This paper is designed to give a brief explication of Whewell's notion of the consilience of induc tions, along with an assessment of the r?le which consilience and related concepts play in Whewell's history and philosophy of science. In the fourteenth aphorism concerning science of the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), Whewell offers what is probably his briefest characterization of the nature of consilience: The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an Induction, ob tained from one class of facts, coincides with an induction, obtained from another class. This Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs.1 To paraphrase, if two chains of 'inductive reasoning* from seeming ly different classes of phenomena lead us to the same 'conclusion', a consilience of inductions has occurred. are In the light of this aphorism, there two significant questions to ask initially about the consilience of inductions: (a) precisely a a what is involved in consilience?2 and (b) why should successful consilience count as 'a test of the truth of the theory'? It is these exegetical questions I will examine in Sections I and II below. In Section III, I will discuss how Whewell applies the notion of con silience to the history of science; while in Section IV I will look at the ways in which subsequent methodologists and logicians of sci ence have reacted toWhewell's requirement of consilience. I Because the notion of consilience is so closely connected with Whewell's doctrine of induction (being effectively the result of two same or more inductions leading to the general proposition), it is important to be clear at the outset about the nature ofWhewellian induction. It is generally accepted that Whewell radically trans 1Quoted from the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences founded upon their London: W. History (2d ed., John Parker, 1847), Vol. II, p. 469. My italics. Hereinafter cited as PIS. 2 use a For brevity, I shall generally the term 'consilience' as shortened form of the phrase 'consilience of inductions'. This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:58:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 370 LARRY LAUDAN formed the traditional meaning (s) of 'induction', i.e.,Whewellian induction is neither inductio per enumerationem simplicem nor is it at all akin to the eliminative induction of Bacon or Mill. On the contrary, induction is seen by Whewell as a necessarily conjectural a process whereby we introduce new conception, not immediately available 'in' the known evidence, which 'colligates' that evidence, while going beyond it both in generality and in abstractedness.3 Whewellian induction is thus similar to what Peirce was later to call abduction or retroduction* and consists essentially in finding some general hypothesis which entails the known facts. As Whewell says, our Inductive Formula might be something like the following: and all known of the same are 'These particulars, particulars kind, exactly expressed by adopting the Conceptions and Statement of the following Proposition'.5 an Using Whewell's technical terminology, induction is general a a ly successful colligation of facts by clear and appropriate concep tion. Adapting Whewell's language to the kind of schema required for a consilience, we might say that the formula for a consilience of inductions is as follows: . These particulars of different types,A? & & An (n>2), and all known particulars of the same types, are exactly expressed by adopting the conceptions and statement of the following Proposi tion: .. .5 3 some 'Thus in each inference made by induction, there is introduced General not Conception, which is given, by the phaenomena, but by the mind. The conclusion is not contained in the premises, but includes them by the introduction of a New Generality*. (Ibid., Vol. II, p. 49.) It is important to stress that the 'new not of the new generality' is merely the generality logical operator 'all'; rather, the the fact cases we generality is a consequence of that 'we travel beyond the which have before us; we consider them as exemplifications of some Ideal Case in which the relations are complete and intelligible*. (Ibid.) to sense It was largely Mill's inability understand this latter of 'generality' on which provoked the classic Whewell-Mill controversy induction. 4 Cf. especially Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), 5.189, as well as his many other discussions of abduction. (See also below, pp. 388.) PIS, 1847, Vol. II, p. 88. This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:58:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WHEWELL ON CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS 371 an Given that induction is the formulation of hypothesis which a a will explain (or 'express') class of known facts, it follows that consilience of inductions occurs when we discover that the same two of facts.6 hypothesis explains (or expresses) (or more) classes meth Disguised within this terse statement are several important treat odological vectors. Indeed, by unpacking Whewell's various ments of consilience, I think we can suggest that a consilience occurs under the following circumstances: an two (1) When hypothesis is capable of explaining (or more) known classes of facts (or laws) ; an can 'cases of a kind (2) When hypothesis successfully predict different from those which were contemplated in the formation of our hypothesis';7 an can or the (3) When hypothesis successfully predict explain occurrence of phenomena which, on the basis of our background to knowledge, we would not have expected occur.8 ? he refers to different Throughout Whewell's writings, frequently 'types*, 'kinds', 'classes' or 'domains' of facts. However, he never concerns himself with that facts are of similar or different kinds. providing criteria for determining Whewell, however, is not alone in this, for more recent writers like Carnap [see, of for instance, Carnap's Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1962), p. 575] and Popper (note 52, below), who adopt principles are in to events of 'different kinds'. similar to (1) to (3), equally vague referring in most of the so-called of A similar ambiguity can be found discussions Principle Limited Variety. 7 the PIS, 1847, Vol. II, p. 65. Elsewhere he describes this species of consilience in facts of a sort in following terms: 'if we again find other uncontemplated framing accounted for when we have the our hypothesis, but yet clearly adopted supposi .
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