Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:41:15.952Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reverend and the Ravens: Comment on Seawright

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Kevin A. Clarke
Kevin A. Clarke*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, Harkness Hall 334, Rochester, NY 14627-0146. e-mail: kevin.clarke@rochester.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The purpose of this Comment is to put the current debate regarding testing necessary conditions into perspective and to point out a particularly troubling aspect of the “all cases” research design (Seawright 2002).

Prior to the recent spate of books and articles in the social sciences (Ragin 1987; Dion 1988; Braumoeller and Goertz 2000), the debate over the testing or the confirmation of necessary conditions took place in the philosophical literature, mainly in terms of Hempel's (1945) paradox of the ravens. In what follows, I briefly review Hempel's paradox and the Bayesian solution to it. I argue that Seawright's account, while Bayesian in nature, relies on an assumption that no Bayesian would be willing to make.

Type
Articles
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Spring 2002 , pp. 194 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Political Methodology Section of the American Political Science Association 2002 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Braumoeller, B. F., and Goertz, G. 2000. “The Methodology of Necessary Conditions.” American Journal of Political Science 44:844–858.Google Scholar
Dion, D. 1998. “Evidence and Inference in the Comparative Case Study.” Comparative Politics 30:127–145.Google Scholar
Earman, J. 1992. Bayes or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
French, S. 1988. “A Green Parrot Is Just as Much a Red Herring as a White Shoe: A Note on Confirmation, Background Knowledge and the Logio-probabilistic Approach.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38:531–535.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. G. 1945. “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation.” Mind 54(1-16): 97–121.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. 1982. Probability and Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Howson, C., and Urbach, P. 1993. Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, 2nd ed. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Humphreys, P. 1989. The Chances of Explanation: Causal Explanation in the Social, Medical, and Physical Sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, T. 1985. “The Context of Prediction (and the Paradox of Confirmation).” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36:393–407.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. 1963. “The Paradox of Confirmation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 13:265–277.Google Scholar
Ragin, C. C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Seawright, J. 2002. “Testing for Necessary and/or Sufficient Causation: Which Cases Are Relevant?” Political Analysis 10:178–193.Google Scholar