CBSE Class 11 Philosophy Mills Methods

Mill’s Methods of Experimental Inquiry

Need for establishing causal relations

To establish the causal relationship is the distinguishing mark of Scientific Induction. Inductive reasoning is based on the assumption that there is a Universal Principle of Causation according to which things are connected in a systematic way. Nothing occurs accidently. Everything that happens must have a cause. The natural and social sciences describe and explain the phenomena and events in terms of cause and effect. From the view point of practical experiences also we are constantly looking for the causes of the events happening around us. All phenomena without any exception are causally related; everything that happens has a cause, and which in turn is followed by an effect.

Nature and Definition of Cause

It is not difficult to know what cause is ? The real problem before human beings is to establish that A is the cause of B. To know that particular phenomenon, say x, is the cause of another phenomenon y is to establish a universal law. The moment Newton had discovered that the gravitational power of earth is the cause of apple falling down, he established a causal relationship and thus had given an extremely important law of gravitation. There are certain things and events whose causes are known to us, yet there are several other things whose causes are not known to us. For example, in spite of the best efforts of the scientists and doctors the exact causes of a deadly disease like cancer is not known.

Causal connection is a relation of invariable succession and hence is a stronger connection than merely a correlation. Causal relationship implies succession in time. Cause is antecedent and hence precedes the effect. Effect is consequent and hence follows the cause. The time interval between cause and effect may be very less but nonetheless gap is there. In simple terms cause is defined as invariable, unconditional, immediate antecedent of an effect.

Scientists define cause in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Necessary conditions are those in the absence of which the effect does not occur. For example, in the absence of oxygen, fire will not occur. But the presence of oxygen does not guarantee the fire to be there because oxygen is merely a necessary condition of fire and not the sufficient conditions of fire. The sufficient conditions are actually sum total number of necessary conditions. These total number of necessary conditions of fire are ignition, fuel and oxygen. If we wish to produce anything desirable then we must look for sufficient conditions. But if we want something not to happen, then we must remove any one of the necessary conditions.

Mill's Experimental Methods

John Stuart Mill in his famous logic book named System of Logic gave five Experimental Methods by which causal connections can be identified between events. Through these methods causes can be determined approximately.

Mill’s five Experimental Methods :

1. Method of Agreement.

2. Method of Difference

3. Joint Method of Agreement & Difference.

4. Method of Concomitant Variation.

5. Method of Residues

All the methods are derived from the nature of causality. They are indeed a detailed statement of what scientific causality is. The nature of causality is such that,

(a) Wherever the cause is present, the effect follows

(b) Wherever the cause is absent, the effect is absent

(c) Wherever the cause varies, the effect varies and their variations are proportional.

(d) What is the cause of one thing is not the cause of a different thing.

The four factors, i.e., a,b,c,d are called the ‘canons of elimination’.

These relations between cause and effect are reciprocal. It is on these canons Inductive Methods are based. They establish causal connections indirectly by rejecting causes which fail to satisfy some one of these conditions. Thus the principle on which the Experimental Methods proceed is the elimination of the irrelevant conditions which fail to fulfill the requirements of causality. Hence, the true function of the Experimental Methods is the discovery and proof of a causal connection by elimination. Induction, however, does not seek the elimination of a non-cause but the establishment of a cause. The Experimental Methods are rules of applying observation and experience in order to eliminate the accidental factors and thereby to select one phenomenon, and to prove that phenomenon to be the cause or effect of another phenomenon.

1. Method of Agreement

Mill states the canon of the Method of Agreement as follows:

"If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon."

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