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On Walsh's Reading of Whewell's View of Necessity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Robert E. Butts
Robert E. Butts*
Affiliation:
Middlesex College University of Western Ontario
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Abstract

In a recent paper,[3], Harold T. Walsh has argued that (1) Whewell's commentators have in the past misunderstood his use of “necessary,” that (2) Whewell's theory of necessary truth developed only gradually through thirty years of scholarly activity, finally finding a “mature” expression in Philosophy of Discovery, published in 1860, and that (3) a proper understanding of Whewell's “mature” theory of necessary truth leads to a fundamental re-interpretation of the nature of the Ideas and of their role in scientific systems—that the meaning of “necessity” as Whewell expresses it in Philosophy of Discovery leads, in short, to a new and more illuminating reading of his philosophy of inductive science. It is my view that the three propositions asserting Walsh's view are incorrect, expecially the two important and crucial ones (2) and (3). In what follows, I shall state what seem to me to be the grounds for rejecting Walsh's view that Whewell's theory of necessity was not arrived at before 1860, and hence for rejecting his interpretation of some basic aspects of Whewell's philosophy of science.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1965 , pp. 175 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1965

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