Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-08T12:41:51.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Material Theory of Induction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

Contrary to formal theories of induction, I argue that there are no universal inductive inference schemas. The inductive inferences of science are grounded in matters of fact that hold only in particular domains, so that all inductive inference is local. Some are so localized as to defy familiar characterization. Since inductive inference schemas are underwritten by facts, we can assess and control the inductive risk taken in an induction by investigating the warrant for its underwriting facts. In learning more facts, we extend our inductive reach by supplying more localized inductive inference schemes. Since a material theory no longer separates the factual and schematic parts of an induction, it proves not to be vulnerable to Hume's problem of the justification of induction.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I thank Cristina Bicchieri, Phil Catton, John Earman, Kevin Kelly, Francis Longworth, Michela Massimi, Joke Meheus, Robert Nola, Wendy Parker, George Smith, and three anonymous referees for helpful discussion; and my special gratitude to Jim Bogen for significant help.

References

Alper, Joseph S., Bridger, Mark, Earman, John, and Norton, John D. (2000), “What is a Newtonian System? The Failure of Energy Conservation and Determinism in Supertasks”, What is a Newtonian System? The Failure of Energy Conservation and Determinism in Supertasks 124:281293.Google Scholar
De Finetti, Bruno ([1937] 1964), “Foresight: Its Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources”, in Kyburg, Henry E. and Smokler, Howard E. (eds.) Studies in Subjective Probability. New York: Wiley, 95157. Originally published in Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré, 7.Google Scholar
Foster, Margueritte H., and Martin, Michael L. (1966), Probability, Confirmation, and Simplicity: Readings in the Philosophy of Inductive Logic. New York: The Odyssey Press.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald R. (1983), “Testing Theoretical Hypotheses”, in Earman, John (ed.), Testing Scientific Theories, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 269298.Google Scholar
Glymour, Clark (1980), Theory and Evidence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, Nelson (1983), Fact, Fiction and Forecast, 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Halmos, Paul R. (1950), Measure Theory. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert (1965), “Inference to the Best Explanation”, Inference to the Best Explanation 74:8895.Google Scholar
Harper, William (2002), “Newton's argument for universal gravitation” in Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chap. 5.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl G. ([1945] 1965), “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation”, Reprinted with changes, comments, and Postscript (1964) in Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press, chap. 1, 3–51. Originally published in Mind 54:1–26, 97–121.Google Scholar
Howson, Colin, and Urbach, Peter (1989), Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Janssen, Michel (2002), “COI Stories: Explanation and Evidence in the History of Science”,Perspective on Science 10:457522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffreys, Harold (1961), Theory of Probability, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Kevin T. (1996), The Logic of Reliable Inquiry. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keynes, John Maynard (1921), A Treatise on Probability. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Lakatos, Imre (1970), “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes”, in Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 91196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipton, Peter (1991), Inference to the Best Explanation. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayo, Deborah (1996), Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart ([1872] 1916), A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation, 8th ed. London: Longman, Green, and Co.Google Scholar
Newton, Isaac ([1692] 1957), “Four Letters to Richard Bentley” in Munitz, Milton K. (ed.), Theories of the Universe. New York: Free Press, 211219.Google Scholar
Norton, John D. (1993), “The Determination of Theory by Evidence: The Case for Quantum Discontinuity 1900–1915”,Synthese 97:131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, John D. (2000), “How We Know about Electrons”, in Nola, Robert and Sankey, Howard (eds.), After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend. Boston: Kluwer, 6797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popper, Karl R. (1959) Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. (1970) “Natural Kinds” in Rescher, Nicholas (ed.), Essays in Honor of Carl Hempel. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1–23. Reprinted in Stalker (1994), 4156.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand ([1912] 1932), The Problems of Philosophy. Reprint, London: Thornton Butterworth.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (1948), Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley (1967), The Foundations of Scientific Inference. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley (1981), “Rational Prediction”, in Grünbaum, Adolf and Salmon, Wesley C. (eds.), The Limitations of Deductivism. Berkeley: University of California Press, chap. 5.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, George E. (2002), “The Methodology of the Principia”, in Cohen, I. Bernard and Smith, George E. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chap. 4.Google Scholar
Stalker, Douglas (1994), Grue! The New Riddle of Induction. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar