How to Move across the Boundaries? A Comparative Study of Two Contemporary Approaches to Extrapolation
Abstract
Although the approaches provided by Daniel Steel and Nancy Cartwright have the same goal―to tackle the challenges presented by the extrapolation problem―Steel complains that Cartwright’s approach is nothing more than simple induction and thus her approach cannot actually help us deal with the methodological problems confronted by extrapolative reasoning. This paper, by presenting a detailed analysis of what Cartwright means in a new account of evidence, aims to point out that the suggestion of Steel’s mechanism-based approach is quite similar to what is maintained in Cartwright’s capacities-based approach, and thus we can say that both approaches extrapolate their models to target populations―or, metaphorically, to use Steel’s own phrase, actually move across the boundaries between model and target―on the same ground.
【Key Words】extrapolation, mechanism-based approach, capacities-based
approach, causality, simple induction, causal structure,
nomological machine, Nancy Cartwright, Daniel P. Steel
作者姓名:
Szu-Ting Chen
期刊名稱:
Korean Journal for the Philosophy of Science
出版年份:
2015年
期別及起訖頁數:
Vol.18(3): 29-56
文章分類:
期刊論文
How to Move Across Boundaries.pdf