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Natural Powers and Powerful Natures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. Harré  and
E. H. Madden
R. Harré
Affiliation:
Linacre College, Oxford
E. H. Madden
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Buffalo
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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
Information
Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 185 , July 1973 , pp. 209 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1973

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References

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

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