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Whewell's Consilience of Inductions--An Evaluation Author(S): Menachem Fisch Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol Whewell's Consilience of Inductions--An Evaluation Author(s): Menachem Fisch Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 239-255 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/187509 Accessed: 25-07-2015 10:42 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]. The University of Chicago Press and Philosophy of Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy of Science. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Sat, 25 Jul 2015 10:42:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WHEWELL'S CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS- AN EVALUATION* MENACHEM FISCHt Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas Tel Aviv University The paper attempts to elucidate and evaluate William Whewell's notion of a "consilience of inductions." In section I Whewellian consilience is defined and shown to differ considerably from what latter-day writers talk about when they use the term. In section II a primary analysis of consilience is shown to yield two types of consilient processes, one in which one of the lower-level laws undergoes a conceptual change (the case aptly discussed in Butts [1977]), and one in which the explanatory theory undergoes conceptual "stretching." In sec- tion III both consilient cases are compared to the non-consilient case in reference to L. J. Cohen's method of relevant variables. In section IV we examine the test procedures of the theory in all three cases, and it is shown that in the event of genuine consilience (consilience of the second type) a theory acquires ex- traordinarily high support. In the final section something is said of the short- comings of standard Bayesian confirmation theories that are highlighted by Whewellian consilience. "Consilience of Inductions" was the name given by William Whewell in his celebrated Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences' to situations in which a causal explanatory theory is successfully conjectured to explain a known law (or laws) of phenomena, and is then found, without further *Received January 1984; revised March 1984. tThis paper was written during a year of research at The Queen's College, Oxford. I wish to thank L. Jonathan Cohen, Prof. Mary B. Hesse, Prof. Joseph Agassi, and an anonymous referee for their helpful criticism of an earlier version of this paper. 'Whewell (1847, 2: pp. 65f., 77-78). The prediction of results, even of the same kind as those which have been observed, in new cases, is a proof of real success in our inductive processes. But the evidence in favour of our induction is of a much higher and more forcible character when it enables us to explain and determine cases of a kind different from those which were contemplated in the formation of our hypothesis. The instances in which this has oc- cured, indeed, impress us with a conviction that the truth of our hypothesis is certain. No accident could give rise to such extraordinary coincidence. No false supposition could, after being adjusted to one class of phenomena exactly represent a different class, when the agreement was unforeseen and uncontemplated. That rules springing from remote and unconnected quarters should thus leap to the same point where truth resides. And as I shall have occasion to refer to this peculiar feature in their evidence, I will take the liberty of describing it by a particular phrase; and will term it the Consilience of Inductions. (Whewell 1847, 2: p. 65) Philosophy of Science, 52 (1985) pp. 239-255. Copyright (C 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association. 239 This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Sat, 25 Jul 2015 10:42:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 240 MENACHEM FISCH adjustment,to provide an equally successful causal explanation of another law of phenomena, one of a kind different from that contemplated in the formation of the theory. This "unforeseen and uncontemplated" agree- ment in which "rules springing from remote and unconnected quarters should thus leap to the same point,"2 was for Whewell the hallmark of certitude;his central "evaluative criterion"-as John Losee puts it (1983, p. 113)3 -for the truth of scientific theory. Yet Whewell never explained how or why consilience should lend a theory such a "stamp of truth" (1847, 2: p. 66). In fact he never put it forward as a derivative of his philosophy of science at all (and indeed it is not). Consilience was presented by him as a feature of (undisputedly) true theories, which is disclosed by the history of science: 2Whewell (1847, 2: p. 65). This interpretationof Whewellian consilience is considerably narrower than-though by no means contrary to-interpretations of some Whewell com- mentators. In Butts (1968, p. 18) consilience is described merely as the requirement that "a good hypothesis explains more than that which it was first introduced to explain." In his 1977, pp. 74-75, although more detailed, the description of consilience still glosses over the crucial point of the two laws finally explained, being of quite different kinds at the point when the theory is suggested. As if to illustrate my point the word "different" is omitted from his citing of Whewell's aphorism XIV on page 74 (the same mistake is made in Laudan [1971, p. 369]). In fact, according to Butts's analysis consilience can only be talked of when the difference is apparent, since the domains of evidence of the two laws have to be found eventually to overlap. (His account of consilience will be dealt with in more detail below.) Larry Laudan, in his 1971, p. 37 1f., suggests that what Whewell called consilience was either one of three cases; the first is: "When a hypothesis is capable of explaining two (or more) known classes of facts (or laws)"; the second roughly coincides with the account suggested here; the third is: "When an hypothesis can successfully predict or explain the occurrence of phenomena which, on the basis of our background knowledge, we would not have expected to occur." Mary B. Hesse, in her 1974, p. 206, follows Laudan ver- batim. Neither Laudan nor Hesse provide references to Whewell's work to support the claim that he had regarded their first and third cases as consilient. I would contest that the first case is anything other than (good-see n. 4 below) straightforward Whewellian in- duction characteristic of many of Whewell's own examples of false and non-consilient hypotheses (Ptolemy's epicycles, the horror vacui theory, etc.). As to their third case, interesting as it is, it is not mere surprise that lends a theory consilient support, it is the surprise upon finding different classes of phenomena accounted for by the same theory (i.e., their second case). Thus, only if the unforeseen phenomena predicted by the theory are of a different kind than those contemplated in its forming would we have consilience in Whewell's sense and that would be a variation on their second case. However, since it is not the aim of this paper to decide what Whewell took to be con- silience, but ratherto decide whether or not what I take to be Whewell's idea of consilience holds any water; and since what I take to be Whewell's idea of consilience is not argued by Whewell's critics (what would be argued is that it is his only idea of consilience), I wish not to take this exegetical question any further here. 3Losee (1983, pt 113). Losee, however, goes on to talk of consilience rather loosely, describing it as "a conceptual integration in which less inclusive generalizations are in- corporated into a more inclusive theory" (p. 114), which is again not more than what Whewell would call an ordinary induction. This content downloaded from 150.135.114.87 on Sat, 25 Jul 2015 10:42:42 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions WHEWELL'S CONSILIENCE OF INDUCTIONS 241 . .we have a criterion of [the hypothesis'] reality, which has never yet been produced in favour of falsehood. (1858, p. 90; 1847, 2: pp. 67-68)4 The nearest he ever came to an explanation of why a consilient theory should be regarded as true was to offer seemingly self-evident meta- phorical examples (such as two decipherers working on different texts and arriving at the same alphabet5). Undoubtedly the historical record itself has since refuted his claim (that consilience is the mark of truth); his own paradigmatic examples-Newton's universal gravity and Huy- gen's and Fresnel's undulatory theory of light-have long been replaced. (And as for the metaphor of the two decipherers, rather than clarify the case, it seems itself in need of an explanation). Nonetheless, many would share the intuition that although consilience cannot be regarded as a mark of truth, one does (and should) feel more confident in a consilient theory (one that is found, surprisingly, to explain a second law of phenomena 4Whewell's philosophy of science, based on what he called "The Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy" (1847, 1: p.
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