Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration

Abstract

I: Causation.- 1. The Knowledge Context Kzt.- Personal Possibilities.- Minimal Rationality.- Epistemic Possibilities.- 2. The Language Framework:L or L??.- Peirce's Theory of Signs.- The Theoretical Objective.- A Dispositional Ontology.- 3. Syntax. Semantics, and Ontology.- Nomological Conditionals.- A Probabilistic Causal Calculus.- Alternative Interpretations.- II: Explanation.- 4. Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance.- Reichenbach's Reference Classes.- Salmon's Statistical Relevance.- Hempel's Maximal Specificity.- 5. A Theory of Causal Explanation.- Long Run Dispositional Concepts.- Alternative Single Case Concepts.- A Single-Case Theory of Explanation.- 6. The Dispositional Construction of Theories.- Causal and Non-Causal Explanations.- Theories and Theoretical Explanations.- Instrumentalism and Theoretical Realism.- III: Corroboration.- 7. The Justification of Induction.- The Traditional Problem of Induction.- The Paradoxes of Confirmation.- A Critique of Hume's Critique.- 8. Confirmation and Corroboration.- Bayesian Conceptions of Confirmation.- Traditional Principles of Induction.- Popperian Procedures of Corroboration.- 9. Acceptance and Rejection Rules.- Orthodox Hypothesis Testing.- An Inductive Acceptance Rule.- In Defense of this Conception.- 10. Rationality and Fallibility.- Scientific Rationality.- Personal Probabilities.- Scientific Fallibility.- References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

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