Mill's Methods: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Mill's Methods: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Mill's Methods: From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Mill's Methods are five methods of induction described by philosopher John Stuart Mill in his 1843
book A System of Logic. They are intended to illuminate issues of causation.
Three of these methods, namely the methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation,
were first described by Avicenna in his 1025 book The Canon of Medicine.[1][2] The remaining two
methods, namely the method of residues and the joint method of agreement and difference, were first
described by Mill.
Contents
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1 Direct Method of agreement
2 Method of difference
3 Joint method of agreement and difference
4 Method of residues
5 Method of concomitant variations
6 References
7 External links
"If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in
common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given
phenomenon."
For a property to be a necessary condition it must always be present if the effect is present. Since this
is so, then we are interested in looking at cases where the effect is present and taking note of which
properties, among those considered to be 'possible necessary conditions' are present and which are
absent. Obviously, any properties which are absent when the effect is present cannot be necessary
conditions for the effect.
“If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs, and an instance in which it
does not occur, have every circumstance in common save one, that one occurring only in the former;
the circumstance in which alone the two instances differ, is the effect, or the cause, or an
indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon.”
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"If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common,
while two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of
that circumstance: the circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances differ, is the effect, or
cause, or a necessary part of the cause, of the phenomenon."
Also called simply the "joint method," this principle simply represents the application of the methods
of agreement and difference.
Symbolically, the Joint method of agreement and difference can be represented as:
"Deduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of
certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents."
If a range of factors are believed to cause a range of phenomena, and we have matched all the
factors, except one, with all the phenomena, except one, then the remaining phenomenon can be
attributed to the remaining factor.
"Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some
particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through
some fact of causation."
[edit] References
1. ^ Lenn Evan Goodman (2003), Islamic Humanism, p. 155, Oxford University Press, ISBN
0195135806.
2. ^ Lenn Evan Goodman (1992), Avicenna, p. 33, Routledge, ISBN 041501929X.
Copi, Irving; Carl Cohen (2001). Introduction to Logic. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0130337358