I argue, in opposition, to the traditional approach that systematic psychological inquiry of a type frequently practiced by people like Edwards, Kahneman and Tversky, and Schum is relevant to the choice of the best inductive logic. In the paper, I present some provisional arguments against the traditional view and sketch some of the relevant evidence. This effort is made with the aim of aiding the development of a naturalistic epistemology.

Philosophers of science have recently been urged by Arthur Fine to collaborate with physicists and with other scientists in constructing scientific theories.2 What I am proposing is a collaboration at the other pole of scientific activity; the pole of experiment.I consider this effort to be part of a tendency within philosophy to naturalize epistemology. The banner of naturalistic epistemology has attracted such men as Quine and Goldman. I consider the effort as one small part of that program which involves not (...) only theoretical integration of at least portions of the two corpuses of knowledge, but the employment of methodologies which are common to them both.The theory of inductive logic today is in stasis. A number of highly ingenious and very sophisticated theories of inference vie for primacy. As in the case of many philosophical theses, no closure seems in sight. (shrink)

Since rationality is a normative ideal, it is difficult to see how a theory of rationality might be subjected to empirical evaluation. This paper explores various aspects of this problem in relation to the work of L. J. Cohen, Amos Tversky and Daviel Kahneman, Ellery Eells, Isaac Levi, and Henry Kyburg. Special consideration is given to its significance for testing systems of inductive logic.

The claim is made that the norms for justified belief in science require a complex structure of practices and institutional arrangements, that these arrangements have a history which, at crucial junctures, are subject to severe stress, that such severe stress puts at issue the whole epistemic structure of science, and that at present science faces one of these periods, and its future is in doubt.

Though it has become a commonplace that probabilistic contexts are intentional, the precise sense in which this is true has never, to my knowledge, been stated. By making use of a relatively non-controversial set of distinctions regarding the grades of modal involvement, I am able to state more exactly than has been done previously the grade of intensionality which probability statements have prima facie. The distinctions I employ are, with certain qualifications, those introduced by Quine in his wellknown paper, Three (...) Grades of Modal Involvement. By means of paraphrases, I am able to show that probability statements exemplify what Quine calls the third grade of modal involvement. Consequently, they are intensional in a way not acceptable to the majority of extensionalists. (shrink)