NEW BOOKS

Scientific Explanation. A Study of the Function of Theory, Probability and

Law in Science. By R. B. BRAITHWAITE. Based upon the Tamer
Lectures, 1946. (Cambridge University Press, 1953. Pp. xii + 376.
Price 40s.)
The title suggests a comparison with Emile Meyerson's De VExplication
dans les Sciences: but how different is the atmosphere! Meyerson was dealing
with the search, made in the name of Reason, and destined to be unending,
for a unity underlying the diversity of phenomena, and with the various ways
in which this search motivated the development of scientific theories. Professor
Braithwaite's emphasis is not at all on finding an underlying unity, but rather
on linking diverse phenomena by general laws, and on connecting diverse
general laws by deducing them from still wider general principles. To the
question, what scientific laws claim to tell us about the nature of things, his
general reply is, that the significance of laws lies entirely in their use in a
deductive system whose end results in the way of conclusions are statements
that such and such empirical facts are to be found under such and such
conditions.
But this is not all. He agrees with Professor Popper in holding that processes
of falsification are of fundamental importance for the understanding both of
the progress of science and of the significance of the assertions made in
science, stressing the point that while it is never logically possible completely
to verify a general statement which covers unobserved as well as observed
instances, it is always logically possible to show how such a generalization
could be falsified. Thus the significance of the universal assertion that every
A is a B is that, (i) from it and the statement that M is an A can be deduced
the conclusion that M is a B, and (ii) every A is a B is to be rejected if M is
found to be an A and not to be a B. The rule of rejection is equally important
with the rule of deduction for giving the meaning or significance of a scientific
law.
The consequence of this way of looking at scientific laws may be seen in
his account of the significance of scientific concepts, such, e.g., as that of the
electron. He agrees with Bertrand Russell that we should not think of such
concepts as pointing to real entities. But he disagrees with Russell's suggestion
that their objects should be interpreted as logical constructions from observed
entities, arguing, as F. Ramsay did, that if this is done then the theory will
be incapable of being modified to explain new sorts of facts, as science
develops. He wishes to get rid altogether of problems arising when we think
of scientific concepts and suppose that they refer to some kind of object, and
I prefers to concentrate on scientific words and to ask how they are used in
I the deductive symbolic calculus.
I Thus we are given an account of science in which neither laws nor concepts
f have any direct counterpart in the actual world. Laws don't state necessary
connections, but neither do they, strictly speaking, describe factual con-
,, sections. They form part of the complex deductive rejection apparatus of
r
- science, and have no significance in themselves. It is better to think of them
• simply as sentences belonging to this apparatus.
So far, the doctrine is a familiar one, though Professor Braithwaite works
i it out in highly ingenious and original ways. His treatment of sentences
f expressing probability on these lines of rejection procedure is new, and full
i of interest. He reserves the phrase "the probability of" for statements
i- expressing frequency. But he rejects the idea that a probability statement
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 PHILOSOPHY 1
j
refers either to the limiting value of an infinite sequence of frequency ratiosJ
or to a random selection from an infinite class. His own approach is a* t
follows. Consider the statement that 51 per cent of human births are male, i
This cannot be taken literally. What it says can be expressed by the alter-
native statement that the probability of a human birth being male is 51 per ^
cent. It does not mean that in any set of say one thousand human births J
exactly 51 per cent will be male. There can be more or fewer. But if over a J
large series of observations the percentage diverges from fifty-one then we shall |
have to decide whether the divergence is great enough to induce us to reject :
the statement. The rules which help us are, Professor Braithwaite asserts, '
what give meaning to the probability statement. They are those worked out
by statisticians, and are purely arithmetical. In this particular case they
would be got by starting with a model consisting of a large number of bags
each containing 51 per cent of say black balls, the rest not black, considering
all the possible alternative combinations which could be made by taking one
ball from each bag, and then judging our particular set of observations as if
it were one of these alternatives. We can calculate what proportion of these
combinations contain a number of black balls deviating from 51 per cent by
any given amount. One convenient formula used by Professor Braithwaite is
that given by Tchebichef: if the frequency affirmed is symbolized by the
fraction p, and if q = 1 — p, n being the number of bags we start with,
and k a positive number however small, then the proportion of the com-
binations containing a percentage of black balls deviating from p by more
than y/pq/nk is less than k. If, e.g., we take n — 1,000, k — 1/20, p = -51,
then "Vpqjnk is very nearly 7 per cent: which means that less than one
twentieth of the total possible alternative selections contain more than
58 per cent or less than 44 per cent of black balls.
Now suppose in our actual case of 1,000 births we find 59 per cent males,
we can consider whether this can reasonably be accepted as a draw from bags
containing this particular proportion, viz. 51 per cent of black balls. We can
see that it would indeed be a possible draw, but that it falls in the class of
draws which form less than 5 per cent of the total possible cases. Thus it
might be more reasonable to think of it as a draw from a set of bags differently
constituted.
Professor Braithwaite proceeds: We give meaning to the probability
statement "The probability of a human birth being male is 51 per cent"
by adopting the rule of rejection: to reject the statement if our observations
show a proportion of males falling in the class of draws which form less than
the fraction k of the total possible cases; k being 1/20, or some smaller
fraction, according to our discretion (153).
His preliminary justification for this rule (154) is that if we are wrong in
our rejection we shall be wrong in less than the fraction k of the total possible
cases.
Let us see what is being said here. "Total possible cases" does not mean,
"cases which can be observed by us." If, to take the simplest example, each
of our 1,000 bags contained 100 balls, then there are altogether ioo1000 possible
different selections made by taking one article from each bag. (To write this
in ordinary notation requires 1 followed by 2,000 zeros.) There would be no
justification so far for saying that we shall be wrong in a proportion less
than k of the total possible cases that we may investigate. But this is what
we want to say. And to say this, we shall have to treat all observed selections
we may make as being typical of the total class of possible selections. On
what ground can we do this? Professor Braithwaite raises the question

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 NEW BOOKS
(155 mid), but I do not think he deals with it. If his particular model of the
situation is to work, he must use something like the notion that any particular
observed set can be expected to have the characteristics possessed by the
majority of the group, and that we are very unlikely to come across an
exceptional set. He refuses to use the notion, which one might think appro-
priate here, of a random selection (133-4), ™r does he appeal to empirical
considerations, but is content to take the rejection rule as a satisfactory
account of the situation. More discussion seems to me to be desirable on
this matter.
The point he does discuss is different, and I am not happy about bis
treatment of it.
He says that the frequency statement "Less than k of all the pos°ible
selections show more than so and so per cent or less than so and so per cent
of males" is a probability statement, whose meaning is still to be explained
(155 top) and he goes on to explain it. But it is a frequency statement of an
entirely diSerent type from the statement that 51 per cent of births are male.
It refers to a perfectly definite class of selections (ioo1000 in number) and
contains no probability element whatever, any more than does the statement
that of the thirty people in this room, just six are males. It is purely arith-
metical and can be taken literally, whereas the statement about births
cannot. It is not a statement about our possible observations, and nothing
so far said in the text justifies passing from it to a probability statement
about our possible observations.
Having slipped into regarding it as a probability statement, however, he
then shows that it needs to be given meaning by a further rejection test,
which itself involves an arithmetical frequency statement of the same sort,
and by treating this frequency statement as a probability statement (without
any justification being given) proceeds to a new rejection test of the same
sort, and so on.
These tests, as he stresses (161 note) are not proposed as practical tests,
but as giving the meaning of the original probability statement. But after all
the tests, are we any nearer an answer than we were after the first test? To
explain the meaning of any probability statement, we have to pass to a test
involving a probability statement of exactly the same kind; and we never
come to an end. This rather bothers me, but I am much more troubled by
his treating the purely arithmetical frequency statement about alternative
possibilities which is the basis of each test as if it were in fact a probability
statement about possible observed cases.
Rejection was stressed for giving the meaning of universal statements on
the ground that no acceptance rule could reach finality. But for probability
statements rejection is equally provisional. Hence we should have expected
him to put provisional acceptance on the same footing with provisional
rejection in this case, and in consequence to have given rules for provisional
acceptance of universal statements at least some part in determining their
meaning. A statement, whether universal or probability, is sometimes
accepted: but if its meaning is given solely by the conditions for its rejection,
what is it we accept?
I have no space to deal with his discussions arising out of the fact that the
tests for rejection of probability statements depend on a decision, for which
there are no absolute logical grounds, as to what value of k to adopt in
particular cases, nor with his extremely interesting treatment in Chap. VII
of the reasons for preferring one statistical hypothesis to another, in which
he expounds the views of A. Wald.
The remaining chapters are concerned with the justification of induction,
355
 PHILOSOPHY
•whether laws of nature state necessary connections, teleological explanation,
and the sense in which an explanation can be given of scientific laws them-
selves. In all these discussions his views are consistent with the views I have
already outlined about the meaning of scientific laws, and bring out their
implications.
There is one special feature of the book to which Professor Braithwaite
himself draws attention, viz. the devices of exposition used in it. "I have
tried," he says, "to bridge the gap between the awareness of all educated
persons of the general way in which science proceeds (by the hypothetico-
deductive method) and their vagueness or puzzlement about such scientific
fundamentals as the function of mathematics in science, the nature of
theoretical concepts and the principles of statistical inference by examining
in great detail simple examples specially constructed to display, without
irrelevances, the logically important features." (xi). Among these the
account of two different forms of a calculus, intended to bring out the
nature of scientific deductive systems (Chap. II) is noteworthy and extremely
effective, though I found the use made of them in Chapters III and IV, which
deal with the status of the theoretical terms in a science and with the use
of models, hard to follow. Many readers are likely to lose grip at page 58 and
to find the calculus rather a hindrance than a help during these two chapters. •
I found myself wondering whether a change of example, rather than a
complicating of the original one, would not have proved more enlightening.
The discussion of the use of models is important, and enables him to bring
out into clear relief his rejection of the view that scientific concepts and
theories are attempts at giving pictures of the real.
I noted a few misprints missed in proof correction, but none of any
importance. Something has gone wrong with the first sentence in the paragraph,
on page 330 mid.
This is a noteworthy addition to the small number of recent English books
on the Logic of Science.
L. J. RUSSELL. •

Ethics and the History of Philosophy. By PROFESSOR C. D. BROAD. (Routledge

and Kegan Paul. 1952. Pp. xiii + 274. Price 21s.)
This is a selection made by Professor Broad from those of his articles and
occasional lectures which have been concerned with the subjects mentioned
in its title. The essays are arranged under three headings: Biography,
Philosophy of Science, and Ethics. The first section contains five papers: on
Newton, Locke, Sidgwick, McTaggart, and W. E. Johnson. The second consists
of three articles: on "The philosophy of Francis Bacon," "The New Philosophy:
Bruno to Descartes," and "Leibniz's last controversy with the Newtonians."
The third reprints "Determinism, indeterminism, and libertarianism" and the
rather less well known "Egoism as a theory of human motives"; together with
two papers now published for the first time, "Ought we to fight for our country;
in the next war?" and "Conscience and conscientious action." There is air
Introduction and an Index (the latter more purely utilitarian than its
predecessors).
Of the first, biographical, section there is little for the reviewer to say: the
five studies are uniformly sympathetic and comprehensive; and are hence
excellently suited to their various purposes. The second, the historical,
section is probably the most valuable: for Professor Broad possesses the raw
combination of qualifications required for tackling these three subjects—a
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