Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-jtdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T22:46:48.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Pessimistic Induction and Two Fallacies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Juha T. Saatsi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Pessimistic Induction from falsity of past theories forms a perennial argument against scientific realism. This paper considers and rebuts two recent arguments—due to Lewis (2001) and Lange (2002)—to the conclusion that the Pessimistic Induction (in its best known form) is fallacious. It re-establishes the dignity of the Pessimistic Induction by calling to mind the basic objective of the argument, and hence restores the propriety of the realist program of responding to PMI by undermining one or another of its premises.

Information

Type
Realism and Underdetermination
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 72 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2005 , pp. 1088 - 1098
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

‡

I want to thank Angelo Cei, Steven French, and Scott Shalkowski for helpful comments, and Philip Good for sparking the initial interest to the topic.

References

Lange, Marc (2002), “Baseball, Pessimistic Inductions and the Turnover Fallacy”, Baseball, Pessimistic Inductions and the Turnover Fallacy 62:281–285.Google Scholar
Laudan, Larry (1981), “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”, A Confutation of Convergent Realism 48:19–49.Google Scholar
Lewis, Peter (2001), “Why the Pessimistic Induction Is a Fallacy”, Why the Pessimistic Induction Is a Fallacy 129:371–380.Google Scholar
Magnus, P. D., and Callender, Craig (2004), “Realist Ennui and the Base Rate Fallacy”, Realist Ennui and the Base Rate Fallacy 71:320–338.Google Scholar
Poincaré, Henry ([1902] 1952), Science and Hypothesis. New York: Dover. Originally published as La science et l’hypothèse. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Psillos, Stathis (1996), “Scientific Realism and the ‘Pessimistic Induction’”, Scientific Realism and the ‘Pessimistic Induction’ 63:S306–S314.Google Scholar
Psillos, Stathis (1999), Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary (1978), Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar