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Salmon's Paper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Henry E. Kyburg Jr.*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University

Extract

First, a comment on a pessimistic note: Salmon says we can't be sure there is any such thing as inductive inference: in demanding that some explanations have the form of correct inductive inferences, “we may be laying down a requirement which cannot be fulfilled.” To doubt that we can fulfill that requirement is to doubt that we can formalize inductive logic. It may be true, but why begin the fight by throwing in the sponge ? It is also true that there are difficulties involved in formalizing acceptance rules for inductive conclusions, but these difficulties may be overcome. It is false to claim that we ‘cannot claim to know exactly’ what these acceptance rules are. Only two years ago I did just that. It was true that my claim was shown to be erroneous a year later, but that fate can befall almost any worthwhile claim.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1965

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References

These comments embody remarks on Salmon's “The Status of Prior Probabilities in Statistical Explanation” which I made on the occasion of the presentation of Salmon's paper at Cleveland in December, 1963. See p. 111 of this issue of this Journal.