I evaluate Schurz's proposed meta-inductive justification of induction, a refinement of Reichenbach's pragmatic justification that rests on results from the machine learning branch of prediction with expert advice. My conclusion is that the argument, suitably explicated, comes remarkably close to its grand aim: an actual justification of induction. This finding, however, is subject to two main qualifications, and still disregards one important challenge. The first qualification concerns the empirical success of induction. Even though, I argue, Schurz's argument does not need (...) to spell out what inductive method actually consists in, it does need to postulate that there is something like the inductive or scientific prediction strategy that has so far been significantly more successful than alternative approaches. The second qualification concerns the difference between having a justification for inductive method and for sticking with induction for now. Schurz's argument can only provide the latter. Finally, the remaining challenge concerns the pool of alternative strategies, and the relevant notion of a meta-inductivist's optimality that features in the analytic step of Schurz's argument. Building on the work done here, I will argue in a follow-up paper that the argument needs a stronger dynamic notion of a meta-inductivist's optimality. (shrink)

Putnam construed the aim of Carnap’s program of inductive logic as the specification of a “universal learning machine,” and presented a diagonal proof against the very possibility of such a thing. Yet the ideas of Solomonoff and Levin lead to a mathematical foundation of precisely those aspects of Carnap’s program that Putnam took issue with, and in particular, resurrect the notion of a universal mechanical rule for induction. In this paper, I take up the question whether the Solomonoff–Levin proposal is (...) successful in this respect. I expose the general strategy to evade Putnam’s argument, leading to a broader discussion of the outer limits of mechanized induction. I argue that this strategy ultimately still succumbs to diagonalization, reinforcing Putnam’s impossibility claim. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to shed new light on a lesser-known stage of the development of Hans Reichenbach’s thought, namely his research, output and teaching activities at Istanbul University. I argue that the experience of Turkish exile was decisive in the elaboration of Reichenbach’s probability theory of meaning and knowledge. His work Experience and Prediction, produced while in Istanbul, should therefore be put in its Turkish context of elaboration and reception. To this end, I will take into consideration not (...) only Reichenbach’s efforts to popularize and extend the Berlin Group’s program of scientific philosophy in Turkey and throughout Europe in the 1930s, but also the forgotten work of Reichenbach’s students—most of them women—at Istanbul University. (shrink)

In recent years, Reichenbach's 1920 conception of the principles of coordination has attracted increased attention after Michael Friedman's attempt to revive Reichenbach's idea of a "relativized a priori". This paper follows the origin and development of this idea in the framework of Reichenbach's distinction between the axioms of coordination and the axioms of connection. It suggests a further differentiation among the coordinating axioms and accordingly proposes a different account of Reichenbach's "relativized a priori".

These considerations on Carl G. Hempel's and Paul Oppenheim's lucid article “Studies in the Logic of Explanation'”—LE for short—are an attempt to exploit some of the considerable advances made there. I wish to show how these advances may be incorporated into a technique for the investigation of problems of the philosophy of science, which has been called discourse-analytic. This discipline consists essentially in a technique of examining actual texts provided by specialists, such as physicists, psychologists, historians, etc., the task being (...) to discover fundamental logical and semantical features in the discourses under investigation. I am preparing a book on historical explanation, which will contain such case studies of historical texts. (shrink)

These arguments are fairly well known today. It is interesting to note that v. Kries already knew them, and that they have been ignored by Reichenbach and v. Mises in their original account of probability.2This observation leads to the interesting question why the frequency theory of probability has been adopted by many people in our century in spite of severe counterarguments. One may think of a change in scientific attitude, of a scientific revolution put forward by Feyerabendarian propaganda- and who (...) would deny that Reichenbach was an excellent propagandist!My suggested explanation is the following:J. v. Kries is still a mentalist in the tradition of Descartes and Locke. This can be shown very well from his logic, which he wrote even much later (1916). A mentalist does not pose semantical questions in a proper sense: he rather asks which ideas in the human mind make up a concept. And studying probability in this way, he will find in any case that what is in the human mind is first of all an expectation. Therefore, his analysis of the concept of probability will be centered around the concept of expectation.People tended to approach the problem in quite a different way after the scientific revolution which led from mentalism to lingualism. They tended in many cases to use operationalism and to ask how probabilities are determined in science, if they wanted to clear up the meaning of probability. This new aspect of probability, which was caused by looking at it from a new position or standpoint, suggested it to be the limit of relative frequencies in the first instance. This suggestion was so strong that all objections were ignored, and all counterarguments encountered deaf ears.Of course I have used here an oversimplification. Neither was J. v. Kries untouched by Poincaré's conventionalism, which is essentially a movement leading to the breakdown of mentalism; nor was Reichenbach, when he wrote his thesis in 1915, already a lingualist in any respect.Nevertheless, I think that the lingualist revolution, which took place particularly in mathematics and physics, has also changed the attitude towards probability. It would be interesting to corroborate this thesis by extensive study of the history of science in the late 19th century.Besides this historical aspect of v. Kries' theory, there is a systematic one which should be noticed. Though his theory still has a mentalist outlook, many of v. Kries' statements can be translated into the present lingualist idiom and then become most interesting contributions to the present discussion. We shall then state that for v. Kries probabilities appear first of all in probabilistic hypotheses which may or may not be confirmed by empirical data. Therefore, they have a role similar to theoretical concepts.3But that is not the only predominant feature of v. Kries' theory. He is approaching objective probability in a way which is quite unfamiliar to present day philosophers or mathematicians. Objective probabilities are connected with other concepts in three different ways. First of all, probabilistic hypotheses are confirmed by empirically found relative frequencies in a finite series of events. Secondly, they serve as an aid for decisions. And finally, there is a third relationship. Probabilities have to be explained by theories which are in many cases not formulated in probabilistic terms themselves. We can try to understand probability in one of the first two ways via their connection to other concepts. That is what is usually done by interpretations in terms of frequencies or decisions. A third approach, however, is to understand the nature of probability by the way probabilities are explained, and that is what v. Kries does. Such an approach does not seem unusual at all. In many cases the nature of a kind of objects is characterized by giving an explanation. If somebody asks what an eclipse of the moon is, we shall answer - as Aristotle already proposed - by giving an explanation of it. Thus it is quite natural to answer a question as to the nature of probability by describing the general type of explanation of probability distributions in natural or social science. The answer given by v. Kries is - as we know today — of limited validity. Quantum mechanical probabilities are not explainable by Spielräume. V. Kries solution, however, is remarkable in one important respect. It accounts for the time direction of objective probabilities, which are always predictive or forward probabilities, while retrodictive or backward probabilities are always subjective. The relation of objective probabilities to time direction is surely of utmost importance for natural philosophy. I do not know of any other philosophical foundation of probability which takes into account this deep-rooted relation. Therefore, v. Kries' interpretation may help us to understand one of the most intricate puzzles of philosophy. It may be nearly one hundred years old, but is by no means out of date. (shrink)

Le premier Congrès pour l’unité de la science qui s’est tenu à Paris en 1935 comprenait deux sessions, consacrées l’une à l’induction, l’autre aux probabilités. Des représentants éminents du mouvement pour une philosophie scientifique ont présenté des communications dans ces sessions: dans la première sont intervenus Hans Reichenbach, Moritz Schlick et Rudolf Carnap, dans la seconde, Reichenbach, Bruno de Finetti, Zygmunt Zawirski, Schlick et Janina Hosiasson, — dans cet ordre. Les sujets abordés concernaient la nature des lois scientifiques, le problème (...) du sens et le principe de l’empirisme, ainsi que des questions connexes portant sur la confirmation des hypothèses scientifiques. Sur la nature des probabilités, les principales interprétations étaient représentées, à savoir le logicisme, le fréquentisme et le subjectivisme. Fut également examinée la possibilité de construire une logique probabiliste. Ce chapitre passe en revue les différentes contributions présentées dans ces deux sessions, à partir du texte publié dans les actes du Congrès. (shrink)

Le premier Congrès pour l’unité de la science (Congrès international de philosophie scientifique) qui s’est tenu à Paris en 1935 comprenait deux sessions, consacrées l’une à l’induction, l’autre aux probabilités. Des représentants éminents du mouvement pour une philosophie scientifique ont présenté des communications dans ces sessions: dans la première sont intervenus Hans Reichenbach, Moritz Schlick et Rudolf Carnap, dans la seconde, Reichenbach, Bruno de Finetti, Zygmunt Zawirski, Schlick et Janina Hosiasson, — dans cet ordre. Les sujets abordés concernaient la nature (...) des lois scientifiques, le problème du sens et le principe de l’empirisme, ainsi que des questions connexes portant sur la confirmation des hypothèses scientifiques. Sur la nature des probabilités, les principales interprétations étaient représentées, à savoir le logicisme, le fréquentisme et le subjectivisme. Fut également examinée la possibilité de construire une logique probabiliste. Ce chapitre passe en revue les différentes contributions présentées dans ces deux sessions, à partir du texte publié dans les actes du Congrès. (shrink)

Hans Reichenbach is well known for his limiting frequency view of probability, with his most thorough account given in The Theory of Probability in 1935/1949. Perhaps less known are Reichenbach's early views on probability and its epistemology. In his doctoral thesis from 1915, Reichenbach espouses a Kantian view of probability, where the convergence limit of an empirical frequency distribution is guaranteed to exist thanks to the synthetic a priori principle of lawful distribution. Reichenbach claims to have given a purely objective (...) account of probability, while integrating the concept into a more general philosophical and epistemological framework. A brief synopsis of Reichenbach's thesis and a critical analysis of the problematic steps of his argument will show that the roots of many of his most influential insights on probability and causality can be found in this early work. (shrink)

I would like to assume that Reichenbach's distinction of Justification and Discovery lives on, and to seek arguments in his texts that would justify their relevance in this field. The persuasive force of these arguments transcends the contingent circumstances apart from which their genesis and local transmission cannot be made understandable. I shall begin by characterizing the context distinction as employed by Reichenbach in "Experience and Prediction" to differentiate between epistemology and science (1). Following Thomas Nickles and Kevin T. Kelly, (...) one can distinguish two meanings of the context distinction in Reichenbach's work. One meaning, which is primarily to be found in the earlier writings, conceives of scientific discoveries as potential objects of epistemological justification. The other meaning, typical for the later writings, removes scientific discoveries from the possible domain of epistemology. The genesis of both meanings, which demonstrates the complexity of the relationships obtaining between epistemology and science, can be made understandable by appealing to the historical context (2). Both meanings present Reichenbach with the task of establishing the autonomy of epistemology through the justification of induction. Finally, I shall expound this justification and address some of its elements of rationality characterizing philosophy of science(3). (shrink)