PHILOSOPHY UNFRAMED
Reply to Van Brakel, Grush, and Morris on Frame Problem

Abstract

Van Brakel (1993), Grush (1993), and Morris (1993) dispute the analysis of the frame problem which is advanced in Fetzer (1991a) and (1991b). I suggest that the frame problem can best be understood as a special case of the problem of induction. Those who persist in maintaining that the frame problem is exclusively a problem of representation miss the point that without a solution to the problem of change even the availability of a representation scheme serves no suitable purpose because there is no solution to the problem of change to represent. And those who persist in maintaining that the frame problem is one of "common sense" rather than one of scientific knowledge need to understand that changes in the world come about as a causal consequence of the operation of natural laws, the objects of scientific discovery. The resources "common sense" provides are not adequate to the problem.

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