Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-26T20:53:22.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Natural Powers and Powerful Natures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. Harré
Affiliation:
Linacre College, Oxford
E. H. Madden
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Buffalo

Extract

The justification of a wholly non-Humean conceptual scheme, based upon the idea of enduring individuals with powers, rests in part on the success of such a scheme in resolving the problems bequeathed to us by the Humean tradition and in part must be achieved by a careful construction of the metaphysics of the new scheme itself. By this we mean a thorough exposition of the meaning and interrelations of the concepts of the new scheme. It is to the latter task that we turn in this paper, being satisfied that the power of the scheme to give a rational account of science has been shown, and that its effectiveness in resolving the Humean problems and dilemmas has been amply demonstrated.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Harré, R., The Principles of Scientific Thinking (London: Macmillan and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Madden, E. H. and Hare, P., ‘The Powers That Be’, Dialogue, 10 (1971), 1231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Madden, E. H., ‘Hume and the Fiery Furnace’, Philosophy of Science, 38 (1971), 6378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For a general discussion of this kind of case, see Austin, J. L., Sense and Sensibilia, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1962, Ch. X.Google Scholar

5 E. H. Madden, op. cit.

6 E. H. Madden, op. cit.

7 Harré, R., ‘Powers’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 21 (1970), 81101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Munn, A. M., Free Will and Determinism (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1960).Google Scholar

9 Kant, I., The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, translated by Bax, E. B. (London: Bell, 1909).Google Scholar

10 Gassendi, P., Syntagma (Lyon, 1658), Book II, Ch. 1, 179184.Google Scholar

11 Strawson, P. F., Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Joske, W. D., Material Objects (London: Macmillan, 1967).Google Scholar

13 Hales, S., Vegetable Staticks, edited Hoskin, M. (London: Oldbourne, 1962) (first published, 1727).Google Scholar