Inductive Warrant

Abstract

But Hertz’s suggestions did not address his original “small metaphysics” conflicts in a credible manner. The alternative resolution that material scientists currently favor supplies an alternative paradigm upon which this book will later elaborate. To this end, the present chapter reviews the intellectual circumstances that Hertz confronted and why they were important to him. He displayed a keen eye for delicate detail in his diagnostic work, in a manner that should serve as a sterling model of conceptual detective work whenever it is wanted. But the depth of his insights has been frequently misunderstood by later generations, largely due to a greatly diminished form of “classical mechanics” that became popular in the twentieth century because of the parochial requirements of quantum theory. Within this reduced setting, Hertz’s motivating problems disappear, not because they have been solved, but because they have been ignored. As an aftereffect, many philosophers writing today confidently believe that they understand what “the worlds of classical mechanics are like,” although these rash presumptions embody a significant degree of simplistic misrepresentation. The present chapter outlines the forgotten background required to appreciate Hertz’s conceptual puzzles as he confronted them. These details are not required for the central argument of the book, but they nicely illustrate the natural contexts from which “small metaphysics” puzzles characteristically emerge within a gradually evolving discourse.