Wesley C. Salmon

Wesley Salmon
Born
Wesley Charles Salmon

August 9, 1925
Detroit, Michigan
DiedApril 22, 2001
Madison County, Ohio[1]
EducationWayne State University
University of Chicago
UCLA (PhD, 1950)
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic
InstitutionsBrown University
Doctoral advisorHans Reichenbach
Main interests
Confirmation theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics
Notable ideas
Statistical-relevance model, the requirement of strict maximal specificity, mark transmission

Wesley Charles Salmon (August 9, 1925 – April 22, 2001) was an American philosopher of science renowned for his work on the nature of scientific explanation.[2] He also worked on confirmation theory, trying to explicate how probability theory via inductive logic might help confirm and choose hypotheses.[3][4] Yet most prominently, Salmon was a realist about causality in scientific explanation,[2] although his realist explanation of causality drew ample criticism.[5] Still, his books on scientific explanation itself were landmarks of the 20th century's philosophy of science,[3] and solidified recognition of causality's important roles in scientific explanation,[2] whereas causality itself has evaded satisfactory elucidation by anyone.[6]

Under logical empiricism's influence, especially Carl Hempel's work on the "covering law" model of scientific explanation,[7] most philosophers had viewed scientific explanation as stating regularities, but not identifying causes.[2] To replace the covering law model's inductive-statistical model (IS model), Salmon introduced the statistical-relevance model (SR model),[8] and proposed the requirement of strict maximal specificity to supplement the covering law model's other component, the deductive-nomological model (DN model).[9] Yet ultimately, Salmon held statistical models to be but early stages, and lawlike regularities to be insufficient, in scientific explanation.[8] Salmon proposed that scientific explanation's manner is actually causal/mechanical explanation.[2][8]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c d e William Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp 24–25.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Lugar was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Vincenzo Crupi, "Confirmation", in Edward N Zalta, ed, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2014 edn.
  5. ^ Phil Dowe, "Causal Processes", in Edward N Zalta, ed, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2008 edn, esp §§ 2 "Objections to Russell's theory", 3 "Salmon's mark transmission theory" & 4 "Objections to Salmon's mark transmission theory".
  6. ^ Kenneth J Rothman & Sander Greenland, "Causation and causal inference in epidemiology", American Journal of Public Health, 2005;95(Suppl 1):S144-50.
  7. ^ Deductive-nomological model
  8. ^ a b c Woodward, James (1988). "Review of Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World". Noûs. 22 (2): 322–324. doi:10.2307/2215867. ISSN 0029-4624. JSTOR 2215867. S2CID 73604470.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fetzer2000p129 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).