The problem of induction belongs to the most controversial issues in philosophy of science. If induction is understood widely, it covers every fallible inference, that is, such that its conclusion is not logically entailed by its premises. This paper analyses so-called reductive induction, that is, reasoning in which premises follow from the conclusion, but the reverse relation does not hold. Two issues are taken into account, namely the definition of reductive inference and its justification. The analysis proposed in the paper (...) employs metalogical tools. The author agrees with the view that a quantitative account of degree of confirmation for universal theories via logical probability is problematic. However, prospect for a qualitative approach look as more promising. Using the construction of maximally consistent sets allows to distinguish good and worthless induction as well as shows how to understand induction in a semantic way. A closer analysis of deductivism in the theory of justification shows that it is a hidden inductivism. (shrink)

This paper presents a more clear formulation of the correspondence principle and explores its justification.

William K. Goosens claims to show that my account of epistemic utility runs into serious difficulties when confronted with certain attractive conditions of adequacy for the evaluation of experiments. I show that those conditions of adequacy which are, indeed, acceptable to both of us are satisfied by the procedures for evaluating experiments mandated by combining my theory of epistemic utilities with the approach to evaluating experiments on which Goosens' argument is based. In particular, I demonstrate that my theory does not (...) violate the requirement that an "ideal experiment" be no worse than any alternative experiment. (shrink)

Surprisingly, modified versions of the confirmation theory (Carnap and Hempel) and truth approximation theory (Popper) turn out to be smoothly sythesizable. The glue between the two appears to be the instrumentalist methodology, rather than that of the falsificationalist. The instrumentalist methodology, used in the separate, comparative evaluation of theories in terms of their successes and problems (hence, even if already falsified), provides in theory and practice the straight road to short-term empirical progress in science ( à la Laudan). It is (...) also argued that such progress is also functional for all kinds of truth approximation: observational, referential, and theoretical. This sheds new light on the long-term dynamics of science and hence on the relation between the main epistemological positions, viz., instrumentalism (Toulmin, Laudan), constructive empiricism (Van Fraassen), referential realism (Hacking, Cartwright), and theory realism of a non-essentialist nature (constructive realism à la Popper). Readership: Open minded philosophers and scientists. The book explains and justifies the scientist's intuition that the debate among philosophers about instrumentalism and realism has almost no practical consequences. (shrink)

Im Gegensatz zur verbreiteten Auffassung über die Voraussetzungen zur Ausbildung neuen Wissens entstehen wichtige Umstellungen im Denken häufig nicht durch harte Konfrontation zwischen Hypothesen bzw. Theorien. Vielmehr sind oft allmähliche Deutungsverschiebungen bei der Auffassung einer einzigen Hypothese bzw. Theorie zu beobachten. Derartige Prozesse erstrecken sich in der Regel über vergleichsweise lange Zeiträume und sind nicht wie die erstgenannten Vorgänge von eher kurzfristiger Natur. Verglichen mit dem Ausgangspunkt der jeweiligen Entwicklung tritt uns aber eine oft an ihrem Ende tiefgreifend veränderte Wissenssituation (...) entgegen. Infolge der Langsamkeit der geschilderten Entwicklungen und der damit zugleich gegebenen Gewöhnung ihrer Vertreter an die geänderte Situation sind derartige Veränderungen des Wissens selten in einem Ausmaß vom Bewußtsein der Neuheit begleitet, wie dies bei Vorgängen der zuerst geschilderten Art der Fall ist. Trotzdem können aber gerade diese Veränderungen nachhaltiger und von grundlegenderer Art sein als jene. In der Folge sollen die beiden angedeuteten Wege der Erkenntnis hinsichtlich ihres strukturellen Unterschieds klarer erfaßt werden. Unterschiedliche Annahmen über die zugrundeliegende Ontologie sind für diese beiden Arten der Wissensbildung von besonderem Interesse. Insbesondere wird sich auch zeigen, daß die bereits in der Fristfrage berührten pragmatischen Gesichtspunkte eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Die beiden in dieser Untersuchung herauspräparierten "Wege" sind Aspekte jeweils eines Erkenntnisprozesses. So sind sie nicht gegeneinander auszuspielen. Vielmehr weist jeder derartige Vorgang Charakteristika beider modellhaft erfaßten Typen auf. (shrink)

Hempel's qualitative criteria of converse consequence and special consequence for confirmation are examined, and the resulting paradoxes traced to the general intransitivity of confirmation. Adopting a probabilistic measure of confirmation, a limiting form of transitivity of confirmation from evidence to predictions is derived, and it is shown to what extent its application depends on prior probability judgments. In arguments involving this kind of transitivity therefore there is no necessary "convergence of opinion" in the sense claimed by some personalists. The conditions (...) of application of the limiting transitivity theorem are most perspicuously described in terms of De Finetti's notion of exchangeability, which leads to a suggested revaluation of the function of theories in relation to confirmation and explanation. (shrink)

Adolf Grünbaum, [1], and Philip Quinn, [7], have proposed two problems as sharpened versions of theses suggested by Pierre Duhem. Can an hypothesis which in itself has no observational consequences ever be falsified by the evidence? When a theory has observational consequences only in conjunction with auxiliary hypotheses and some of these consequences fail, can the theory always be reasonably defended by constructing alternative auxiliary hypotheses?

The distinction between sociology of science on the one hand and methodology and systematics on the other, is an established historical fact. Thus, even in modern methodologically orientated philosophy, epistemological analyses still tend to disregard the pragmatic contexts within which scientific knowledge is produced, processed and applied. This situation also reflects the well-known fact that philosophy of science has largely ignored the conceptual and methodological foundations of technology, that is, those disciplines directly and explicitly linked to the practical implications and (...) intended applications of scientific research. The following considerations suggest that the methodology of technology provides useful and generally applicable criteria of the evaluation and acceptance of the hypotheses and theories of empirical science. (shrink)

The few extant arguments concerning the autonomy of science in the rational acceptance of hypotheses are examined. It is concluded that science is not morally autonomous, and that the attendant notion of rationality in science decisionmaking is inadequate. A more comprehensive notion of scientific rationality, which encompasses the old one, is proposed as a replacement. The general idea is that scientists qua scientist ought, in their acceptance decisions, to take into account the ethical consequences of acceptance as well as the (...) consequences with regard to the attainment of "purely scientific" or "epistemic" objectives. The result constitutes an argument for a (presumably cooperative) game theoretic treatment of inductive logic. (shrink)

The problem of distance from the truth, and more generally distance between hypotheses, is considered here with respect to the case of quantitative hypotheses concerning the value of a given scientific quantity.Our main goal consists in the explication of the concept of distance D(I, ) between an interval hypothesis I and a point hypothesis . In particular, we attempt to give an axiomatic foundation of this notion on the basis of a small number of adequacy conditions.

This paper presents a theory of conclusions based upon the suggestions of Tukey [21]. The logic offered here is based upon two rules of detachment that occur naturally in probabilistic inference, a traditional rule of acceptance, and a rule of rejection. The rules of detachment provide flexibility: the theory of conclusions can account for both statistical and deductive arguments. The rule of acceptance governs the acceptance of new conclusions, is a variant of the rule of high probability, and is a (...) limiting case of a decision-theoretic rule of acceptance. The rule of rejection governs the removal of previously accepted conclusions on the basis of new evidence. The resulting theory of conclusions is not a decision-theoretic logic but does, through the aforementioned limiting property, provide a line of demarcation between decision and conclusion (i.e., nondecision) logics of acceptance. The theory of conclusions therefore complements decision-theoretic inference. The theory of conclusions presented here satisfies Tukey's desiderata, specifically: (1) conclusions are statements which are accepted on the basis of unusually strong evidence; (2) conclusions are to remain accepted unless and until unusually strong evidence to the contrary arises; (3) conclusions are subject to future rejection, when and if the evidence against them becomes strong enough. Finally, the proferred theory of conclusions has a strong conservative bias, reflecting Tukey's aims. (shrink)

Several revisions of the Hempel and Oppenheim definition of explanation have been offered in recent years, and none have gone uncriticized in the literature. In the present paper it is argued that the difficulties involved with these attempts are based upon a confusion between three types of explanation, and that Professor David Kaplan's model of S-explanation provides a uniform treatment of all three types.