| Reading for Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction to Philosophical Thinking ver. 0.21; An Open Source Reader | ||
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If psychology were to be an exact, or to use Mill's phrase, " a perfect" science, then specific human acts could be accurately predicted. Would a prediction be accurate if the person about to act becomes aware of the prediction prior to the act itself? Does the fact that a prediction can be known in advance disprove the possibility of predicting accurately or is that fact just one more antecedent condition? Thoroughly explain your view.
Is it merely a coincidence that Mill's phrase, repeated several times in this chapter, concerning the aspects of the science of human nature as applying to "the thoughts, feelings, and actions" correspond to three of the four psychological types analyzed by C. G. Jung: the thinking, feeling, and sensation types (the fourth, the intuitive type, is omitted)?
Do you think that a probabilistic science such as meteorology would qualify on Mill's outlook as an exact science? See his thoughts on this question in his A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, Book. VI, Chapter IV.