More on Covering Laws and Theory in Archaeology

1979 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-184
Author(s):  
Dwight W. Read ◽  
Stephen A. LeBlanc
Keyword(s):  
Covering Laws

scholarly journals The Third Dogma Revisited

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petri Ylikoski
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The One ◽  
Covering Laws

This paper argues that there are some serious problems with the Wesley Salmon’s arguments against the so-called third dogma of empiricism. In the first place, his formulation of the dogma is ambiguous: it can be read in at least four different ways. Secondly, his arguments against the dogma are only able to refute the strongest version of it. The second part of the paper considers the idea that covering laws have a constitutive role in singular causal explanation and argues that this idea is not plausible. Consequently, the only defensible form of the dogma is the one that claims that all explanations can be reconstructed as deductive arguments.

Humean Causation and Kim's Theory of Events

1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Horgan
Keyword(s):  
Concrete Object ◽  
Jaegwon Kim ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Garden Variety ◽  
Concrete Objects ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
Covering Laws ◽  
Empirical Property ◽  
Influential Theory

In recent years Jaegwon Kim has propounded and elaborated an influential theory of events. He takes an event to be the exemplification of an empirical property (or n-adic attribute) by a concrete object (or several concrete objects) at a time. He also has proposed and endorsed a version of the “Humean” tradition concerning causation: the view that causal relations between concrete events depend upon general "covering laws." But although his explication of the covering-law conception of causation seems quite natural within the framework of his theory, it gives rise to a serious problem: in numerous garden-variety instances of causation, the Humean conditions (as Kim specifies them) are not satisfied. In this paper I shall suggest a way to modify Kim's theory of events in order to reconcile it with his treatment of causality.

Are statistical hypotheses covering laws?

Synthese ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Levi
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Hypotheses ◽  
Covering Laws

Covering laws in historical practice

Inquiry ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 445-463
Author(s):  
Sten Spam Nikon
Keyword(s):  
Covering Laws ◽  
Historical Practice

Rescuing Hempel From His World

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-169
Author(s):  
Carlos Leone ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Covering Laws ◽  
Do So

This paper makes the case for the relevance of C. G. Hempel’s 1942 proposal of the usage of «covering laws» in History. To do so, it argues that such a proposal reflects how 18 and 19th centuries «philosophy of History» became methods or epistemology of History. This carried a change in meaning of «History»: no longer a succession of past events but the study of documented human action (including of scientific kind in general), its distinction vis-à-vis philosophy, sociology etc., becomes a minor matter as far as logic of research is concerned. Also present in this paper is the conception of theory as a conceptual mode of narrative, and the defense of a development of theories alongside their practice, not apart from them. Authors considered besides Hempel range from Max Weber to Sigmund Freud, from Arthur C. Danto to Albert O. Hirschmann.

Explanation, Causes, and Covering Laws

1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray G. Murphey
Keyword(s):  
Covering Laws

scholarly journals Poking Counterfactual Holes in Covering Laws: Cognitive Styles and Historical Reasoning

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip E. Tetlock ◽  
Richard Ned Lebow
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
Good Judgment ◽  
Historical Reasoning ◽  
Close Call ◽  
Equilibrium Process ◽  
Covering Laws

We report a series of studies of historical reasoning among professional observers of world politics. The correlational studies demonstrate that experts with strong theoretical commitments to a covering law and cognitive-stylistic preferences for explanatory closure are more likely to reject close-call Counterfactual that imply that “already explained” historical outcomes could easily have taken radically different forms. The experimental studies suggest that counterfactual reasoning is not totally theory-driven: Many experts are capable of surprising themselves when encouraged to imagine the implications of particular what-if scenarios. Yet, there is a downside to openness to historical contingency. The more effort experts allocate to exploring counterfactual worlds, the greater is the risk that they will assign too much subjective probability to too many scenarios. We close by defining good judgment as a reflective-equilibrium process of balancing the conflicting causal intuitions primed by complementary factual and counterfactual posings of historical questions.

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