A Philosophical Journey

A Philosophical Journey
Author(s): Michael Tooley

Source: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 83, No.
2 (November 2009), pp. 97-115
Published by: American Philosophical Association
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A Philosophical Journey
Michael Tooley
University of Colorado at Boulder
Dewey Lecture delivered before the One Hundred Sixth Annual Central
Division Meeting of The American Philosophical Association in Chicago,
Illinois, on Thursday, February 19, 2009.
First of all, let me say that 1 am very honored indeed to have been invited
to give the John Dewey Lecture at this meeting of the Central Division of
The American Philosophical Association.
The invitation that I received indicated that the "Dewey Foundation's
intent is to have senior American philosophers reflect on their careers
in philosophy, taking a generally broad perspective," and it said that
"Dewey Lecturers in the past have usually included some account of their
philosophical education and some views on the state of the profession, or
the ways in which it has changed through their careers." I shall attempt
to follow this invitation, though when I turn to some remarks on the state
of the profession, I shall focus somewhat closely on one problem area in
which I am especially interested.
1. Becoming a Philosopher
Some people have philosophical thoughts, and begin asking philosophical
questions, at a rather young age. I think, for example, of one of my
grandsons, Anthony. As I mention in the dedication of the book that I
recently co-authored with Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge of God, Anthony, at
the age of seven, discovered, entirely on his own, a version of the argument
from evil. Anthony, at the time, knew nothing about my views on religion.
Nor did he know that anyone had ever had any doubts about the existence
of God. But one morning, when Anthony was with us, I had been reading
something about creationism in a newspaper, and in a frustrated tone of
voice, I said to my wife Sylvia, "I wonder how many dinosaurs were on the
Ark." It turned out that Anthony had recently been exposed to the story
of Noah's Ark, and he said, "If there were a good God, he wouldn't have
drowned all of those animals, would he?"
When I was young, I was exposed to many such stories, but they
seemed to occasion no critical reflections at all in me: I happily believed
them all. Not a very promising start for a philosopher!
I did, during my high school days, develop a strong interest in
mathematics and physics. Growing up near Toronto, when I graduated
from high school, I went to the University of Toronto. There one chose
98 Proceedings and Addresses of the APA 83:2
a major as soon as one entered the University, and I decided to major

in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. At that point, though I was
extremely interested in mathematical problems, I do not believe that I had
ever entertained a single critical thought, and philosophy was for me a
completely unknown discipline.
At one point, however, I was talking to a friend that I grew up with who,
unlike me, was an intellectual, and read very widely. He recommended a
book by Bertrand Russell?Marriage and Morals?and I took his advice. As
I read Russell's book, I realized for the first time in my life that one could
ask why one believes various things. When I did that, it quickly became
apparent to me that I really had no evidence at all for many of the most
important things that I believed. Having realized that, I was somehow
able immediately to set those beliefs aside, thinking that I would return to
them if, upon further investigation, I found that there were good reasons
for doing so.
My life had, in a mere day or two, changed dramatically. Before I read
Russell's book, I had been a Christian; by the time I finished, I was an
unbeliever. More importantly, I now found myself having critical thoughts
about many things, and deeply interested in questions, especially in the
area of ethics, that I had never really thought about before. I was very
much on the road to becoming a philosopher.
I was still, however, very much in love with mathematics and physics.
But shortly thereafter, I met another undergraduate, who was majoring in
philosophy. His name was Danny Goldstick, and I would sometimes see
him in the halls of University College at the University of Toronto, talking
with his classmates about philosophy. Danny had the view that one could
prove things in philosophy, and I sometimes listened to him as he offered
proofs to his fellow students?for example, a proof that determinism was
true, or a proof that absolutely every possibility that one could imagine, no
matter how complex or strange, would be realized at some point in space
and time. (Think of the concrete possible worlds of David Lewis, but view
them, not as isolated from one another, but, instead, as somehow parts of
a single, very large world.)
Danny made philosophy look extremely exciting, and the result
was that, when I was in the first week of my third year as a student in
mathematics and physics, I decided to change my major, and I switched
to philosophy.
Philosophy at the University of Toronto at that time turned out,
however, to be almost entirely the study of the history of philosophy. I had
some really excellent teachers?including David Gauthier, who impressed
me deeply?but aside from one or two courses, when one was studying
philosophy at that time at the University of Toronto, one never quite made
it into the twentieth century.
There was one other person at that time, however, who had a
major influence on me, and that was Barry O'Neill. Barry was studying
mathematics and physics, but he was also very interested in certain parts
Dewey Lecture - Central Division 99
of philosophy, especially the work of Rudolf Carnap. So he and I read

some Carnap together, including parts of Carnap's Logical Foundations
of Probability. This exposure to Carnap's ideas has had a major impact on
my views of how one should approach a variety of philosophical issues, as
I shall indicate later.
Upon graduating from the University of Toronto, I was able to go on to

Princeton for graduate study, and there I found myself in a very different,
and very exciting world. Now I was being exposed to contemporary
philosophy, and I was learning much more about how to do philosophy.
At Princeton, I had a number of really excellent teachers from whom
I learned a great deal, but there were two who especially affected, in
major ways, the future course of my philosophical life. One was C. G.
Hempel, from whom I took a course in philosophy of science. I was
deeply impressed by Hempel's great clarity of mind, and by the rigorous
way in which he approached philosophical problems. But Hempel also
introduced me to a number of fascinating philosophical problems that
were very relevant to my later work as a philosopher. Especially important
in this regard were, first, the problem of the meaning of theoretical terms;
secondly, Goodman's New Riddle of Induction, and the problem of
justifying induction; and, thirdly, the problem of giving an account of the
nature of laws of nature.
In the term paper that I wrote for Hempel's class, I attempted, quite
preposterously, to answer both Goodman's New Riddle of Induction, and
to offer an account of laws of nature. As regards those two problems, my
idea concerning laws of nature appeared the more promising, and so I
more or less decided at that point that I would write my dissertation under
Hempel on the problem of giving an account of laws of nature.
The account that I had in mind was a very positivistic account,
being essentially a certain sort of regularity theory in which whether a
given cosmic generalization expressed a law of nature or was merely
accidentally true was determined by precisely what types of events fell
under the generalization in question.
The following semester, however, I took a seminar from Walter
Kaufmann. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, after switching
to philosophy, I had discovered two books that Kaufmann had written on
philosophy of religion?Critique of Religion and Philosophy and Faith of
a Heretic?and I had been deeply impressed by both of them. So I took
Kaufmann's seminar in philosophy of religion, and for a term paper I wrote
about the problem of whether theological statements had what was called
"cognitive significance," and I attempted to show that, contrary to the
arguments of logical positivists, especially A. J. Ayer in his book Language,
Truth, and Logic, that they did. The upshot was that Kaufmann suggested
that I write a dissertation on that topic, and this I decided to do.
This was, in a way, a somewhat strange course. For in responding to
the positivist argument for the view that theological statements do not
have cognitive significance, that they do not express propositions, that
they do not say anything that is either true or false, I had to delve deeply
into the problem of the formulation of verifiability principles of cognitive
meaning, and I had to discuss such matters as whether it was statements
about physical objects, or statements about phenomenal properties of
experiences that were the correct "protocol statements," as they were
called.
Those of you who have read books by Walter Kaufmann will know
that these were not exactly matters that were close to Walter Kaufmann's
heart. Moreover, the style of my dissertation was heavily analytical through
and through. But Kaufmann, though not always noted for his tolerance
in other matters, seemed happy to allow me to go my own way, and so
I completed my dissertation on the topic of the cognitive significance of
theological statements.
2. My Philosophical Interests
As I have just mentioned, I became interested in philosophy when I first
realized that one could think critically about one's basic beliefs and values,
and so it was that my initial philosophical thoughts centered upon issues
concerned with whether various religious beliefs were rational, and upon
questions in the area of ethics, including such things as sexual morality,
and the education of children. (In a preface to a collection of his essays
edited by Paul Edwards, Bertrand Russell said, "The world needs open
hearts and open minds, and it is not through rigid systems, whether old
or new, that these can be derived.") But the study of philosophy as an
undergraduate at the University of Toronto, along with my reading of some
of Rudolf Carnap's writings, had introduced me to a number of exciting
and intellectually challenging philosophical problems, many of which
had no connection at all with what one might call the Socratic side of
philosophy, with questions of what one should believe, and of how one
should live one's life.
This interest in these two sides of philosophy?on the one hand, in
philosophy as a Socratic quest in which one examines critically one's own
most basic beliefs and values, and encourages others to do the same, and,
on the other hand, in philosophy as focused on deeply challenging and
fundamental intellectual issues that may have very little relation to how
one should live?these two very different philosophical interests continued
throughout my time as a graduate student, the former being influenced
especially by my contact with Walter Kaufmann, and the latter by teachers
such as C. G. Hempel, Robert Nozick, Gil Harman, Richard Rorty, Paul
Benacerraf, Alonzo Church, Saul Kripke, and (as a visitor) Wilfrid Sellars.
This interest in these two sides of philosophy has then continued, very
strongly, throughout my philosophical career. Thus, on what one might call
the technical, purely intellectual side of philosophy, I have been especially
interested in a number of issues in metaphysics and epistemology. In
metaphysics, I have focused very heavily on questions concerning the
metaphysics of laws of nature, the nature of causation, the nature of time,
and the relation between causation and time.
In the area of causation and laws of nature, I have defended non

reductionist, or realist accounts, according to which neither laws of nature
nor causal relations between events are reducible to what one might call
Humean facts about the world?that is, very roughly, non-dispositional,
non-causal facts about the properties of, and relations among, particulars.
In philosophy of time, I have defended a so-called "growing block" view of
the nature of time, according to which, while past and present events are
actual as of the present moment, future events are not.
In the case of epistemology, although the area is one in which I have
long been interested, it is only recently that it has become my main area of
research. My primary project in epistemology is to write a book defending
indirect realism (or the representative theory of perception). Skepticism
is an obstacle that stands in the way, however, so what I am presently
working on is a book on the refutation of skepticism?both skepticism
about induction, and skepticism about the existence of an external, mind
independent, physical world.
In tackling these two skeptical problems, my work in metaphysics is
relevant, and in a crucial way, as is my longstanding interest in Rudolf
Carnap's work in inductive logic. For what I shall attempt to show is that
neither skeptical problem can be solved unless one brings to bear both a
non-reductionist account of laws of nature and Carnap's idea of logical
probability.
On the Socratic side of philosophy, my main interests are in applied
ethics and the philosophy of religion. In applied ethics, I have written on
the moral issues raised by euthanasia, cloning, and abortion, and I have
defended the views that voluntary active euthanasia, human cloning, and
abortion are all morally permissible. Of those three areas, abortion is the
one in which I have been most active, having written a number of essays,
and a book, Abortion and Infanticide, and having recently contributed to
the three-way debate volume, Abortion: Three Perspectives.
In philosophy of religion I am especially interested in the evidential
argument from evil, and in the debate volume, Knowledge of God, which
I co-authored with Alvin Plantinga, the setting out of a version of the
argument from evil was central to my contribution to that volume.
Finally, these two sides of philosophy are not always unconnected,
since issues on the technical side of philosophy sometimes have very
important bearing upon Socratic questions. Thus, in the case of questions
concerning the moral status of abortion, questions in philosophy of mind
may be quite crucial. For example, the Catholic church's view that abortion
is seriously wrong rests upon an argument, one of whose premises is that
the human mind is an immaterial substance. If, as the vast majority of
contemporary philosophers working in philosophy of mind hold, and
surely correctly, that view is false, then that argument against abortion
must be thrown out. Or, to take another example, though momentary
subjects of consciousness, such as are present in some animals, may
have a right to be free of pain, it would seem that it is only continuing
subjects of consciousness that can have a right to continued existence.

If that is right, then the question of what makes for a continuing subject
of consciousness?typically discussed under the label of the question of
personal identity?looms large, if one is to grapple with the question of the
moral status of abortion. Does one, for example, only have a continuing
subject of consciousness once one has an entity that possesses the
capacity for thought?
In the case of philosophy of religion, the argument from evil has been
around for a long time, but philosophical focus has recently been upon
what are called evidential, or inductive, or probabilistic versions of the
argument from evil. It seems to me, however, that if one is to make progress
in deciding whether an evidential version of the argument from evil is
sound, and thus really does show that it is unlikely?perhaps extremely
unlikely?that God exists, then one needs to take inductive logic seriously,
and bring it to bear upon the argument. That was what I attempted to do in
the debate volume that I wrote with Plantinga: I used Carnap's approach
to inductive logic to formulate a quantitative version of the argument from
evil, a version that enables one to derive a formula that gives, for any
number of evils whose known wrongmaking properties outweigh their
known rightmaking properties, the probability that God exists.
3. The State of Our Discipline: Is There Progress in Philosophy?
Let me now abandon, for the moment, the exclusive focus on my own
philosophical interests and journeys, and turn to the question of the state
of our discipline. Let us consider, in particular, the issue of progress in
philosophy.
Philosophical progress can take different forms, including (1)
the discovery of new and important philosophical questions, (2) the
introduction of novel concepts that are relevant to philosophical problems,
and (3) the formulation of new, alternative philosophical positions, and
new answers to philosophical questions. But the most important type
of progress, it seems to me, consists of (4) the proof of philosophical
propositions. I think it is important for us as philosophers, then, to ask
what has been achieved in that regard.
Some people are deeply pessimistic. Thus our present president,
for example?and here I am referring not to President Obama, but to
Professor Peter van Inwagen?has expressed the following view, in his
book The Problem of Evil: "The idea that there are proofs in philosophy as
there are proofs in mathematics is ridiculous, or not far short of it; . .
Then, after proposing a standard for a successful philosophical argument,
according to which a successful argument would have the "indisputability
of mathematical proof,"2 van Inwagen continues, "Only one thing can be
said against this standard of philosophical success: if it were accepted,
almost no argument for any substantive philosophical thesis would count
as a success."3
I do not share this pessimism: it seems to me that substantive
philosophical theses can be, and have been, proven. At the same time, I
do think that the rate of progress in philosophy is depressingly slow, and

that that fact should occasion serious reflection.
4. Two Breakthroughs in Twentieth-Century Philosophy

But let us leave this possibly depressing question about the rate of
progress in philosophy behind. How shall we do that? I propose to do so
by looking briefly at two philosophical breakthroughs that in the twentieth
century radically changed the philosophical landscape forever. The one
was a proof of an extremely important philosophical thesis. The other was
not: it pointed only to a shining possibility, and one that has not yet been
shown to be a reality. But later remarks in this talk will be an attempt to
indicate the path that one must travel if the basic idea is to be shown to
be sound, and will, hopefully, generate some optimism in at least some of
you concerning the prospects of completing that journey.
4.1 The Analysis of Theoretical Terms
There are a number of tasks that seem to me central to philosophy. First,
there is the analysis of philosophically important concepts. Second, there
is inquiry into whether various fundamental human beliefs can be justified,
and, if so, how, and to what extent. Third, it also seems to me that a central
task of philosophy is to establish various necessary truths. Finally, I think
that philosophy should aim at constructing a synoptic view of reality.
Here, however, I want to focus on analysis. What are the basic
questions that need to be answered concerning analysis? One is whether
there is a class of analytically basic concepts in which all analyses should
ultimately terminate, or whether, on the contrary, Nelson Goodman was
right in holding that there are many alternative sets of concepts that serve
equally well as starting points of analysis, and thus that the idea of there
being analytically basic concepts makes no sense. (This is a view that
appears to some philosophers to have some "gruesome" consequences,
not least of all for the justification of induction, given Goodman's "New
Riddle of Induction.")
Second, there is the question of what logical apparatus one can
employ in analyzing concepts.
Third, there is the question of whether concepts that are not analytically
basic can be analyzed in terms of those that are in any way that has the
result that propositions can be formed whose truth values do not logically
supervene upon propositions that involve only analytically basic concepts.
Or, slightly less accurately, but more succinctly: "Is there a way of defining
theoretical concepts that does not result in a reductionist interpretation of
theoretical propositions?"
John Locke and David Hume discussed the first of these questions, and
I think that their answer, properly formulated, is correct. It is not, however,
a question that is frequently discussed today, the common philosophical
practice tending to be that if one needs a concept, one should help oneself
to it. This I think is unfortunate, for some important philosophical positions
stand or fall, I would argue, with whether a given concept needs to be
analyzed, or whether it can be taken as analytically basic. For example,

many so-called tensed or A-theory views in the philosophy of time treat the
concept of the future as analytically basic. I think this is clearly incorrect,
and if that is so, then those tensed positions, including, most notably,
perhaps, presentism, collapse, since they are unable to offer any analysis
of the concept of the future.
Let us once again, however, set aside potentially depressing thoughts,
and turn to the third question just mentioned. The beginning of the
breakthrough with regard to that question was the paper "Theories" by
Frank Plumpton Ramsey, written in 1929, shortly before his death at the age
of twenty-six. That paper, though it did not solve the problem, contained
a crucial idea that was needed for a solution. The idea was that, for any
theory, one could construct a sentence?the Ramsey sentence?that did
not contain any theoretical terms, all of the latter having been replaced by
variables, and then existential quantifiers binding those variables having
been placed at the beginning of the resulting open sentence.
Ramsey himself appears to have had strong reductionist and
verificationist leanings, and it seems clear that he thought of the method as
enabling one to adopt something like an instrumentalist view of theories.
Thus, in another paper that he wrote in 1929, "Causal Qualities," he says,
It is possible to have a "realism" about terms in the theory similar
to that about causal laws, and this is equally foolish. "There is
such a quantity as mass" is nonsense unless it means merely to
affirm the consequences of a mechanical theory. {Foundations of
Mathematics, 261)
It was only many years later that it was seen that one could use
Ramsey's idea to provide the basis for a non-reductionist analysis of
theoretical concepts, with detailed and careful accounts being offered
first by R. M. Martin in 1966, in his paper "On Theoretical Constructs and
Ramsey Constants,"4 and then by David Lewis in 1970, in his paper "How
to Define Theoretical Terms."5
Here, then, is an extremely substantial philosophical thesis that has

been demonstrated:
Given any initial set of concepts, O, logical apparatus is
available that allows one to define another set of concepts,
T, which are such that there are propositions that can be
formulated using the latter set of concepts whose truth values
do not logically supervene upon the totality of propositions that
involve (a) only the initial concepts, and (b) no quantification
over properties or relations.
Why do I say that this is an extremely substantial philosophical thesis?
There are two reasons. First of all, the analysis of concepts is one of the
central tasks of philosophy, and the above thesis answers one of the most
central questions concerning what sorts of analyses are possible. Secondly,
in any number of areas of philosophy, given this method of analysis, new
alternatives are clearly on the table. In epistemology, for example, before
this thesis was established, the only non-skeptical alternative to direct

realism in the philosophy of perception was phenomenalism, which was
exposed to numerous objections, whereas given the above thesis, indirect
realism (the representative theory of perception) is an option. Or consider
meta-ethics: given the above thesis, Mackie's error theory could be
formulated, as well as views according to which objective values, though
not immediately perceivable, exist, and are not reducible to naturalistic
states of affairs.
To return, for a moment, to a personal note, when I learned, from

reading David Lewis's paper, that it was possible to offer a non-reductionist
analysis of theoretical terms, that had a very major impact upon my own
philosophical thinking. For I was working, at that time, on the philosophy
of perception. I was convinced?as I am now?that there are very strong
objections to direct realism. But at that time it seemed to me that the
only non-skeptical alternative was phenomenalism, and so I was laboring
mightily to defend phenomenalism against a plethora of objections that
seemed rather impressive?many of them arguments, or variants on
arguments, advanced by David Armstrong in his book Perception and the
Physical World. The knowledge that concepts of physical objects could be
analyzed in way that did not reduce propositions about physical objects to
propositions about sensory experiences then liberated me from what, in
retrospect, was a hopeless enterprise.
4.2 Induction: Beyond Instantial Generalization
Let us now turn to the second breakthrough. In an inductive argument from
p to <7, p does not entail q, but p is supposed to, at the very least, increase
the probability that q is true. The type of argument that one perhaps most
naturally thinks of in this connection is one where the evidence, p, consists
of a proposition to the effect that a number of Fs have been observed, all
of which were G. The inductive conclusion may then be that the next F will
also be G?or, rather more boldly, that absolutely all Fs are G.
When Hume discussed induction, it was this sort of inference that,
quite naturally, he focused upon. In the second half of the twentieth
century, however, the idea came to be generally accepted that the class of
inductive arguments was much broader. Perhaps the most common label
for this broader class of inductive arguments was "inference to the best
explanation," but philosophers also spoke of "abduction," of "hypothetico
deductive method," and of "the method of hypothesis."
This seems to me one of the most important developments in
philosophy, not just in the twentieth century, but at any time. One reason is
that in the type of inductive inference where one is moving from evidence
of the form that a number of Fs have been observed, all of which were G,
to the conclusion, either that the next F will also be G, or that absolutely
all Fs are G, the only descriptive terms that occur in one's conclusion?"F"
and "G"?are terms that occur in the statement describing the evidence.
Consequently, this sort of argument?which I shall call induction via
generalization upon instances?cannot serve to show that evidence
supports some hypothesis if that hypothesis involves concepts that do not

occur in the proposition expressing the evidence.
Induction via generalization upon instances is therefore necessarily
very limited. So if one wanted to claim, for example, that observations
concerning macroscopic objects and events provided evidential support,
say, for the theory that there are atoms, conceived of as things composed
of protons, electrons, and neutrons, if induction via generalization upon
instances was the only game in town, the only way that one could support
that evidential claim would be by analyzing talk about atoms, protons,
electrons, and neutrons in terms of talk about macroscopic objects.
Before philosophers had a method of setting out an analysis of
theoretical terms, interpreted in a non-reductionist fashion, this was not,
of course, a serious limitation. But once such a method was available, if
induction could only take the form of generalizing upon instances, that
was clearly an extremely serious limitation.
The idea of a type of inductive inference that went beyond generalizing
upon instances did not, of course, only arise in the second half of the
twentieth century. As is reasonably well known, C. S. Peirce advanced
such a view. Here, for example, is a short quote from a manuscript that he
wrote around 1901:
Long before I first classed abduction as an inference it was
recognized by logicians that adopting an explanatory hypothesis?
which is just what abduction is?was subject to certain conditions.
Namely, the hypothesis cannot be admitted, even as a hypothesis,
unless it be supposed that it would account for the facts or some
of them. The form of inference, therefore, is this:
The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course;
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.6
The situation as regards the idea of a type of inductive inference
that goes beyond merely generalizing upon instances is, however, very
different from that concerning the Ramsey-sentence-inspired method of
analyzing theoretical terms. In the case of the latter, one has a method
that is demonstrably correct, and with it a very substantial philosophical
proposition that has been proved. In the case of the former, however,
the situation is very different: the idea that there is a legitimate type of
inductive reasoning that goes beyond merely generalizing upon instances
is very important, but the claim that such reasoning is legitimate has been
seriously challenged, and there is as yet no proof that inference to the best
explanation is an acceptable type of inference.
5. The Problem of Justifying Induction
Given the idea of inference to the best explanation, it is natural to think
that if one wants to find a justification for induction, starting out from the
idea of inference to the best explanation is the way to go. It seems to me,
however, that that is not the route that one should travel, since it seems
to me that a principle of inference to the best explanation is not at all

a plausible candidate for a fundamental principle of inductive logic. I
cannot, at this point, explain why that is so, but I shall of course be happy
to turn to that question in discussion if some of you are interested.
5.1 Rudolf Carnap and Inductive Logic
If it is a mistake to think of some principle of inference to the best explanation
as a fundamental principle, how should one approach questions
concerning inductive inference? Here, my contact, in my undergraduate
days, with Carnap's book Logical Foundations of Probability, has had
a decisive influence upon my thinking, since it seems to me that what
one needs to do is to think in terms of the concept of logical probability,
understood as a function that, for any two propositions p and q, specifies
the logical probability that q is true given only that p is true.
Any such system of logical probability, to be satisfactory, has to rest
upon fundamental principles of equiprobability. Carnap, in his approach,
thought in terms of two main alternatives. One involved treating what he
called "state descriptions" as equally probable. The other involved treating
what he called "structure descriptions" as equally probable. These two
options will be important in what follows, though I myself believe that both
options are mistaken, and it seems to me that the basic equiprobability
principle should be formulated in terms of what are known as families of
properties.
5.2 Bayes' Essay
As I indicated earlier, the idea of a type of inductive inference that goes
beyond generalizing upon instances is found in C. S. Peirce. But it is also
found much earlier, in a famous essay by Thomas Bayes that was published
posthumously in 1760, entitled, "An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in
the Doctrine pf Chances."
Thomas Bayes is, of course, a very well-known figure, with a very
familiar theorem that bears his name. But that theorem is trivial, and was
only a miniscule part of his essay. Bayes was interested in proving much
more substantial theorems, theorems bearing upon the following problem
which he states at the very beginning of his essay:
Given the number of times in which an unknown event has
happened and failed:
Required the chance that the probability of its happening in a single
trial lies somewhere between any two degrees of probability that
can be named.
But if one can solve this problem, if one can establish a formula
relating the probability that the objective chance of a certain sort of
event lies between certain bounds, given information about the relative
frequency of events of the sort in question, then one has done something
very substantial indeed, for one has then solved the problem of justifying
induction. The question, then, is whether Bayes solved the problem of
justifying induction, and did so in David Hume's own lifetime, and by a
method that Hume never considered.

Now Hume, had he been aware of what Bayes had done, might well
have objected that one could not make sense of the notion of chance with
which Bayes was working. Hume would have been right that there was
no way of analyzing that notion at that time. But it now seems clear that
we are able to analyze that notion. If so, that sort of Humean objection can
no longer be sustained, and we need to confront the question of whether
Bayes did succeed in justifying induction.
My own view is that Bayes did not quite succeed, but that he was very
much on the right track. Bayes' basic approach involved introducing the
metaphysical idea of chances, or propensities, and then he adopted an
equiprobability principle according to which, to put it a bit loosely, any two
propensities of the same general type are equally likely.
My objection to this type of approach grows out of my interest in
laws of nature. It is that I think that there are good reasons for holding
that objective chances cannot be ultimate properties of things. Instead,
objective chances logically supervene on, and must be reduced to, causal
laws of nature plus categorical properties and relations. But if that is right,
then a solution to the problem of justifying induction should be set out
in terms of equiprobability principles that are formulated, not in terms of
propensities, but, instead, in terms of laws of nature.
6. Analysis and New Alternatives in Metaphysics
The availability of a method of analyzing theoretical terms that is compatible
with a non-reductionist interpretation of those terms opened the door, in
my own case, not only to the possibility of defending indirect realism as
an account of perceptual knowledge, but also to the possibility of non
reductionist analyses of a number of very important metaphysical notions,
including the ideas of causation, of propensities and objective chances, of
dispositional properties, and of laws of nature. Given the breakthrough in
analysis, non-reductionist analyses of all of those concepts could now be
given.
The possibility of setting out such analyses does not, of course, show
that the concepts in question are metaphysically unproblematic. Thus, it
could turn out that just as in the case of the concept of a logically necessary
person, where the vast majority of philosophers think that, although an
analysis of that concept can be given, it turns out that the concept is such
that it is logically impossible for there to be anything answering to that
concept, so one might think, for example, that though one can offer non
reductionist analyses of causation, of propensities, and of laws of nature, it
turns out, for some or all of those concepts, that it is logically impossible for
there to be anything to which those concepts, thus analyzed, truly apply.
I shall not consider that issue here. What I want to do in the remainder
of my talk is, instead, to explore the relevance of this issue, in the case
of laws of nature, to the problem of justifying induction, and what I shall
argue is that the justification of induction stands or falls with whether it is
possible to set out a coherent non-reductionist account of laws of nature.
7. Reductionist Versus Non-Reductionist Accounts of Laws of Nature

One of the great divides in contemporary metaphysics is that between
philosophers who defend reductionist approaches to such things as
laws of nature and causation, and those who defend non-reductionist
approaches. So let us consider this divide, in the case of laws of nature.
What is involved in a reductionist approach to laws of nature? There
are various ways of explaining this, but here I think it will do simply to
say that reductionist views of laws of nature involve the acceptance of
something like the following thesis of Humean Supervenience:
All matters of fact logically supervene on states of affairs that
consist of particulars having non-dispositional properties and
standing in spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal relations that do
not involve causation.
A reductionist approach to laws of nature, then, is an approach that
holds that laws of nature logically supervene upon those sorts of states of
affairs involving particulars. A non-reductionist approach to laws of nature
rejects this supervenience claim.
Can a non-reductionist approach be characterized in a more positive
way, rather than simply in terms of a rejection of Humean Supervenience?
The answer is that it can be, and the sort of account that I favor is essentially
as follows:
Laws of nature are atomic states of affairs consisting of second-order
relations between universals that, first of all, are not entailed by any set of
Humean states of affairs, and that, secondly, in the case of non-probabilistic
laws of nature, entail that some specific regularity involving Humean states
of affairs obtains.
8. Non-Reductionism, Reductionism, and the Epistemological Challenge

8.1 The Challenge to Non-Reductionist Views of Laws of Nature
A common objection to non-reductionist approaches to laws of nature is
that, in postulating the existence of states of affairs that involve something
more than Humean states of affairs, there is no way of justifying the belief
in the existence of the extra ontological items that are being postulated.
Thus, Barry Loewer, for example, in his paper "Humean Supervenience,"
claims, "The metaphysics and epistemology of Humean laws, and more
specifically, Lewis-laws, are in much better shape than the metaphysics
and epistemology of the main anti-Humean alternatives."7 Loewer himself
does not really offer much support for the epistemological part of this claim.
But this type of epistemological objection is certainly defended by others,
most notably, perhaps, by John Earman and John T. Roberts, who devote
a two-part, fifty-six-page paper in Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research to an attempt to establish this objection.
8.2 The Challenge Reversed
A crucial claim, then, that reductionists with regard to laws of nature
advance is that non-reductionist approaches to laws of nature face a
serious epistemological challenge: How can one possibly be justified in

believing in the existence of anything more than cosmic regularities? How
can one be justified in believing in the existence of strong laws of nature,
understood as atomic states of affairs involving second-order relations
between universals that are supposed to underlie, and provide a basis
for, regularities? Reductionists with regard to laws of nature generally are
confident, moreover, that this challenge is one that cannot be met.
In the remainder of this talk I shall attempt to do two things. First of
all, I shall refer to some things that can be proven that together show
that if strong laws of nature are not logically possible, then a belief in
reductionist laws of nature cannot only not be justified: it can be shown
to be unjustified. Secondly, I shall then cite other results that can also be
proved, which show that if, on the contrary, strong laws of nature are
logically possible, then it can be shown that certain inductive inferences
are justified.
9. Reductionist Approaches to Laws of Nature and Inductive Skepticism
The results that I have in mind depend upon whether, in formulating
inductive logic, one assumes that all state descriptions are equally
probable, or whether, as Carnap thought, all structure descriptions are
equally probable. I do not think that this is the place to launch into an
explanation of those two technical notions, so I hope that you will indulge
me in allowing me to use those two technical expressions simply as
convenient labels.
Let me, then, simply state some results. In doing so, I shall often refer
to a concrete case of the relevant theorem, rather than formulating it in a
general and very abstract way. Finally, all of these results are predicated on
the assumption that strong laws of nature are not logically possible.
The first two results are based on the assumption that the correct
equiprobability assumption on which to base one's inductive logic is that
it is state descriptions that are equally likely. Given that assumption, one
has the following two results
Result 1
Suppose, for concreteness, that there is an urn that contains a million
marbles, each of which is either red or green. Given no information at all,
what is the probability that the millionth marble drawn from the urn is red?
The answer is Vfc. Suppose, now, that 999,999 marbles have been drawn
from the urn, and that all of them are red. What is the probability, given
that information, that the millionth marble drawn from the urn is red? The
answer is still V2.
Conclusion: If strong laws of nature are logically impossible, one cannot

learn from experience.
Result 2
Suppose, first, that, through the total history of the world, there are an
infinite number of things that are F. Suppose, further, that a billion things
that are F have been observed, and that all of them were G. What is the
probability that all Fs are Gs? The answer is that that probability is either
equal to (or, if one accepts infinitesimals, infinitesimally close to) zero.
Suppose that, somewhat disheartened by those two theorems, a
reductionist with regard to laws of nature follows Carnap's lead, and
defines logical probability based on the proposition that it is structure
descriptions, not state descriptions, which are equally likely. Then one has
the following theorem:
Result 3
If property G does not belong to a family of positive, incompatible properties,
then given only the information there are n Fs, and that all of them have
property G, the probability that the next F will also have property G is equal
to . (Laplace's famous Rule of Succession)
Now this is a cheering result. The more Fs one observes, all of which
have property G, the more likely it is that the next F has property G. So one
can learn from experience.
But one also has the following theorem:
Result 4
Suppose, once again, that, through the total history of the world, there
are an infinite number of things that are F. Suppose, further, that a billion
things that are F have been observed, and that all of them were G. What
is the probability that all Fs are Gs? The answer, once again, is that that
probability is equal to (or, if one accepts infinitesimals, infinitesimally
close to) zero.
Results 2 and 4 look depressing if one holds that strong laws of nature
are logically impossible. But Hans Reichenbach offered an interesting
argument for the following theorem:
Result 5
If probabilistic laws of nature are logically possible, then no evidence can
ever make it likely that a non-probabilistic law obtains.
If Reichenbach is right, then one can never confirm any non
probabilistic law, and so Results 2 and 4 need not trouble the reductionist
with regard to laws.
Happiness for the reductionist is, however, short-lived. For, first of all,
if one returns to the idea of defining logical probabilities based on the
proposition that all state descriptions are equally likely, one can then prove
the following theorem:
Result 6
Suppose, for concreteness, 1,000 Fs have been examined, and all 1,000
have turned out to be Gs. What is the probability that, if 1,000 more Fs are
examined, 90% of the combined set of 2,000 Fs will be Gs? The answer is
that it is 2.04944 x 1086.
This is a rather small number. What it illustrates is that the combination
of a reductionist approach to laws of nature with a state description
approach to logical probability is not going to allow one to be able confirm

the existence of some law or other to the effect that the probability that an
F is a G is equal to k, where k falls in some moderate interval in the vicinity
of the number one.
Suppose, finally, that one shifts, once again, from a formulation of
logical probability that treats state descriptions as equally likely to a
formulation that treats structure descriptions as equally likely. Does that
save the reductionist? The answer is that it does not, since one can prove
the following theorems:
Result 7
Suppose that 1,000 Fs have been examined, and all of them have turned
out to be Gs. What is the probability that, if 1,000 more Fs are examined,
90% of the combined total of 2,000 Fs will be Gs? The answer is that the
probability is just over 20%.
Result 8
Suppose, finally, that one billion Fs have been examined, and all of them
have turned out to be Gs. Suppose, further, that in the total history of the
universe, there are an infinite number of Fs. What is the probability that
90% of all the Fs will be Gs? The answer is that the probability is equal to
10%.
The moral, I suggest, seems clear: if one embraces a reductionist
approach to laws of nature, then regardless of whether one adopts a
state description approach to inductive logic or a structure description
approach, one will not be able to avoid the conclusion that no interesting
scientific hypothesis concerning laws of nature can be confirmed.
10. Families of Properties and the Epistemology of Strong Laws of
Nature
So how are things epistemologically if strong laws of nature are logically
possible? The answer to that question depends upon the idea that the most
basic equiprobability principle is one that is formulated, not in terms of
either state descriptions or structure descriptions, but in terms of families
of properties. One way of formulating such a principle is as follows:
Given any family of incompatible properties, if P and Q are any two
members of such a family, then the a priori probability that a has property
P is equal to the a priori probability that a has property Q.
Given such a principle, if strong laws of nature are logically possible,
and if they can take the form of certain atomic states of affairs consisting of
irreducible second-order relations among universals, then certain sets of
such second-order relations will be families of relations. Accordingly, one
can apply the equiprobability principle just stated to such families of nomic
relations, thereby generating equiprobability conclusions concerning
laws of nature.
Given this starting point, one can then work out the probability that
a strong law of nature, falling within a certain range, does obtain, given
information about events that would fall under such a law if it did exist.
Doing this involves a somewhat complicated calculation, especially
because one has to take into account the possibility of probabilistic
laws connecting being F with being G. But I can set out a table that will
make it evident that if one accepts the idea of strong laws of nature, the
epistemology of laws of nature is in reasonably good shape.
First of all, however, I need to explain some notation:
"a L1 " means "There is some number k such that it is a law that the
probability that something that has property F has property
where ft lies in the range from a to 1."
?qh? means ?n particular things that have property F all
G."
"M2" means "G does not belong to a family of positive p
that the only possibilities are either having property G, or n
"Pr(<7/p)" means "The logical probability that q is the c
p is the case."
So "PrQL/q" &M2)" means "The probability that there is
ft such that it is a law that the probability that something t
F has property G is equal to ft, where ft lies in the range fr
that n particular things that have property F all have proper
does not belong to a family of positive properties."
Result 9
If a = 0.99, then the value of Pr^L/Q" & M2) is given by the following
table:
Value of n VriL/Q" & M2)
1 0.000199
10 0.003140791
100 0.159292545
200 0.404718644
300 0.60791531
400 0.750963679
500 0.844923366
1000 0.986867122
What this table shows is that if it is possible for th
laws of nature, then the probability that it is either a dete
all Fs are Gs or else that there is a probabilistic law to th
probability that something that is F is also G is equal to f
the range from 0.99 to 1, can be raised to quite high val
small number of instances.
Summing Up
In the second part of this talk today, I have focused o
whether there can not only be progress in philosophy, but progress of what
I think is the most important sort, namely, the setting out of philosophical
proofs. In discussing this question, I focused on two issues, one concerned
with analysis, and the other with the justification of inductive inference. In
the case of the former, I claimed that the development of a method of
analyzing theoretical terms and concepts in a non-reductionist way is itself
the proof of a very substantial philosophical thesis, and one that has very
important implications for many branches of philosophy.
In the case of inductive inference, on the other hand, what I said was,
first, that the idea that inductive inference could take a form other than
inductive generalization upon instances was a very important idea, but,
secondly, that the development of that idea in terms of the view that a
principle of inference to the best explanation was a fundamental principle
of inductive inference seemed to me a mistake. The right approach, I
suggested, was to employ Carnap's idea of logical probability. Finally, I
argued that the prospects for such an approach depend crucially upon the
metaphysics of laws of nature, and there I claimed that there are theorems
that provide excellent reason for thinking, on the one hand, that if strong
laws of nature are not logically possible, then no laws of nature can ever
be confirmed, whereas if strong laws of nature are logically possible, then
the existence of such laws can be confirmed, and the problem of justifying
induction can be solved.
The proofs of the relevant theorems, moreover, are purely
mathematical. One consequence, then, is that there is no reason to accept
the view mentioned earlier, to the effect that "[t]he idea that there are
proofs in philosophy as there are proofs in mathematics is ridiculous, or
not far short of it." In some areas of philosophy, mathematical proofs are
possible, and what they establish may very well be extremely substantive
philosophical theses, bearing as they do upon one of the central problems
in philosophy?that of the justification of induction.
Endnotes
1. Peter van Inwagen. The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006),
37.
2. Ibid., page 38.
3. Ibid., page 39. Van Inwagen immediately goes on to distinguish between
substantive philosophical theses and minor philosophical theses: "I say
"substantive philosophical thesis" because I concede that there are, so to
call them, minor philosophical theses?such as the thesis that, whatever
knowledge may be, it is not simply justified true belief?for which there are
arguments that should convince any rational person.
4. R. M. Martin. "On Theoretical Constructs and Ramsey Constants." Philosophy
of Science 33(1966): 1-13.
5. David Lewis. "How to Define Theoretical Terms." Journal of Philosophy 67
(1970): 427-46.
6. Philosophical Writings of C. S. Peirce, edited by Justus Buchler (New York:
Dover Publications, 1955), 151.
7. Barry Loewer. "Humean Supervenience." Philosophical Topics 24 (1996):

101-27, and reprinted in John W. Carroll (ed.), Readings on Laws of Nature
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 176-206. See page 177 of
the latter.
8. John Earman and John T. Roberts. "Contact with the Nomic: A Challenge for
Deniers of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature Part I: Humean
Supervenience." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71/1 (2005):
1-22, and "Contact with the Nomic: A Challenge for Deniers of Humean
Supervenience about Laws of Nature Part II: The Epistemological Argument
for Humean Supervenience," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
71/2 (2005): 253-86.

A Philosophical Journey

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A Philosophical Journey

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A Philosophical Journey

Author(s): Michael Tooley

a major as soon as one entered the University, and I decided to major

of philosophy, especially the work of Rudolf Carnap. So he and I read

Upon graduating from the University of Toronto, I was able to go on to

In the area of causation and laws of nature, I have defended non

subjects of consciousness that can have a right to continued existence.

do think that the rate of progress in philosophy is depressingly slow, and

4. Two Breakthroughs in Twentieth-Century Philosophy

analyzed, or whether it can be taken as analytically basic. For example,

Here, then, is an extremely substantial philosophical thesis that has

this thesis was established, the only non-skeptical alternative to direct

To return, for a moment, to a personal note, when I learned, from

supports some hypothesis if that hypothesis involves concepts that do not

to me that a principle of inference to the best explanation is not at all

method that Hume never considered.

7. Reductionist Versus Non-Reductionist Accounts of Laws of Nature

8. Non-Reductionism, Reductionism, and the Epistemological Challenge

serious epistemological challenge: How can one possibly be justified in

Conclusion: If strong laws of nature are logically impossible, one cannot

approach to logical probability is not going to allow one to be able confirm

7. Barry Loewer. "Humean Supervenience." Philosophical Topics 24 (1996):

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