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On the Empirical Significance of Pure Determinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andy Kukla
Andy Kukla*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

In response to the growing number of paradoxes relating to the hypothesis of universal predictability, Sellars has written:

… conceptual difficulties do arise about universal predictability if we fail to distinguish between what I shall call epistemic predictability and logical predictability. By epistemic predictability, I mean predictability by a predictor in the system. The concept of universal epistemic predictability does seem to be bound up with difficulties of the type explored by Gödel. By logical predictability, on the other hand, is meant that property of the process laws governing a physical system which involves the derivability of a description of the state of the system at a later time from a description of its state at an earlier time, without stipulating that the latter description be obtained by operations within the system. It can be argued, I believe, with considerable force that the latter is a misuse of the term ‘predictability’, but it does seem to me that this is what philosophers concerned with the free will and determinism issue have had in mind, and it simply muddies up the waters to harass these philosophers with Gödel problems about epistemic predictability. ([6], pp. 143–144)

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 141 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1978

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References

[1] Grünbaum, A. “Free Will and the Laws of Human Behavior.” American Philosophical Quarterly 8 (1971): 299–317.Google Scholar
[2] Hempel, C. “Some Reflections on ‘The Case for Determinism’.” In Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science. Ed. by Hook, S. New York: Collier, 1961. Pp. 170–175.Google Scholar
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[4] Nagel, E. “Some Notes on Determinism.” In Determinism and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science. Ed. by Hook, S. New York: Collier, 1961. pp. 196–200.Google Scholar
[5] Russell, B. “On the Notion of Cause.” In Mysticism and Logic. London: Unwin, 1963. Pp. 132–151.Google Scholar
[6] Sellars, W. “Fatalism and Determinism.” In Freedom and Determinism. Ed. by Lehrer, K. New York: Random House, 1966. Pp. 141–174.Google Scholar