1972/12/01 by Hugh Lehman · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Decision Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Philosophy and History of Science #Scientific Computing and Data Management #Cell Image Analysis Techniques
paper · doi:10.1086/288471
Wesley Salmon has advanced a new model of explanations of particular facts which requires that the explanans contain laws. The laws used in explanations (according to this model) are of the form P(A · C 1 , B ) = p 1 ... P ( A · C n , B ) = p n . A condition imposed by Salmon on these laws is that the reference classes, i.e. A · C 1 ... A · C n , be homogenous with reference to the property B. A reference class A is homogenous with reference to a property B if every property which determines a place selection with reference to B within A is statistically irrelevant to B in A. It is argued here that the concept of homogeneity cannot in general be satisfied in scientific explanations and that even a weaker requirement, “epistemic homogeneity,” may be too strong.