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Sommers' Theory and the Paradox of Confirmation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

George Englebretsen
George Englebretsen*
Affiliation:
Bishop's University
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Extract

In order to confirm any statement of the form (a) A are B we consider a sufficiently large number of A in order to check them for having or failing to have property B. But logic leads us to believe that A are B is equivalent to (b) non-B are non-A. If this is so then it seems reasonable to suppose that we confirm (a) and (b) in the same way. Whatever set of things we consider for confirming one must be the same set that we consider for the other. Yet in confirming (a) the set considered seems to be the set of A, while in confirming (b) the set considered seems to be the set of non-B. How can two logically equivalent statements be confirmable in different ways?

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 1971 , pp. 438 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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References

[1] Quine, W. V., “Natural Kinds” in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Goodman, N., Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1965.Google Scholar
[3] Sommers, F., “Types and Ontology,” Philosophical Review, vol. 72, 1963, pp. 327–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Sommers, F., “The Ordinary Language Tree,” Mind, vol. 68, 1959, pp. 160–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar