[ De content van deze pagina is beperkt ]

[ De content van deze pagina is beperkt ]

...which depend, in part, on specific circumstances, are trends; and according to Mill, all causal laws, 'in consequence of their liability to be counteracted,...affirmative of tendencies only, and not of actual results'.39 For otherwise our statement of the laws would not accurately describe those many cases...

...make the occurrence of exceptions appear to be an ordinary feature of science with an ordinary remedy. "All laws of causation, in consequence of their liability...affirmative of tendencies only, and not of actual results" (1973, p. 445). A so-called exception to a principle "is always some other and distinct principle cutting...

...other things being equal, C-type events are followed by E-type events. Or as John Stuart Mill puts it: All laws of causation, in consequence of their liability...be stated in words affirmative of tendencies only. (System of Logic: III.x.4) On the face of it, this point eliminates one of the alleged distinctions...

[ De content van deze pagina is beperkt ]

[ De content van deze pagina is beperkt ]

...explanation should be expressed in terms of the tendencies of actions rather than their actual consequences. These facts are correctly indicated by the expression...effect with which the science is conversant; thus pressure, in mechanics, is synonymous with tendency to motion, and forces are not reasoned on as causing...

[ De content van deze pagina is beperkt ]

...that the object moves, but that it tends to move, in the direction and with the velocity specified. These facts are correctly indicated by the expression...affirmative of tendencies only, and not of actual results ... A similar improvement in terminology would be very salutary in many other branches of science.13...