Are Causal Facts Observable?
This entry was posted on 4/13/2007 2:45 PM and is filed under Philosophy of Science,perception.
I just read John Earman and John Roberts'
interesting papers defending Humean Supervenience about laws of nature, in PPR 2005. They argue that facts about which generalizations are nomic supervene on non-nomic observable facts. Their argument is that without such supervenience, it would be impossible to find empirical justification for believing that a generalization is nomic (as opposed to something true by coincidence).
It seems to me that their argument relies on the implicit assumption that nomic facts (such as facts about causal relations) are unobservable. For if some nomic facts were observable, observations of such nomic facts may constitute an empirical justification for believing that a generalization is a law, even though Humean Supervenience would be violated.
Now, I know that Hume and many others deny that causal relations are observable. But at least some psychologists, and probably some philosophers, have argued that causal relations are observable. I find it extremely plausible that causal relations and other nomic facts are observable. For instance, I can try to push as hard as I can against the wall and observe, "I can't break this wall by pushing it". Isn't this an observation of a nomic fact?
Does anyone know whether there is any consensus one way or the other about whether nomic facts, such as facts about causal relations, are observable? Does anyone else agree that causal facts and perhaps other nomic facts are observable?
