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5 hrs ago·edited 5 hrs agoAuthor

I think you might be right here. Wittgenstein seemed to think there are "two orders of things", reasons and causes (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3320611). He was inclined to think that while reasons are philosophical, causes are merely posits (I think this may be correct) than can have at best a high degree of likelihood or credence (or whatever it is you think licenses reasons). He like Gould is very much a Humean in this respect, although I think both are Humeans by way of Neo-Kantianism.).

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I may be off, but I think I see echos here of the problems that Gould takes head on. For Wittgenstein it was to make a point about importance, for Gould it was to solidify, to ground, evolutionary biology. Both had an issue with the story telling that included claims of causality.

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