Comment on Kimble's generalism.

Abstract

pirical phenomenon that proves to be roughly as predicted, this significantly confirms every one of the distinguishable propositions explicitly or implicitly conjoined in H. Explanatory induction welcomes the phenomenon, but insists that we heed all of its interpretable details, not just fragments most congenial to H, and that our interpretation take pains to distinguish explanatory conclusions that the extant data substantially warrant (which may or may not be among H's central tenets and which may or may not be points of contention between H and its main rivals) from conjectures in H that these data leave no more plausible, if not less so, than before. Only in this way can explanatory speculations be purefied and annealed into theories provisionally worth believing. I leave it for you to judge how often in psychology's modern climate of hypotheticodeductive licentiousness we have managed to achieve the latter. This is scarcely the place for a crash course in explanatory induction's operational specifics. But before that can be installed in our graduate methodology education with the same respect (though, it is hoped, less rote indoctrination) now given to sampling statistics, our spokespersons on professional affairs must first come to appreciate its practical importance if we still aspire for psychology to be a hard science.

To be or ought to be? That is the question.

“…My reactions to the comments of Rozeboom (this issue) and of Green and Powell (this issue) are similar but more complicated. These criticisms derive from developments in the philosophy of science, which the authors know more about than I do.…”