Abstract
To many people, justifying induction seems rather like squaring the circle. It has so often been shown to be impossible that anyone who attempts it risks the suspicion of being mildly insane. Yet it seems evident that we do reason inductively, we accept and believe, perhaps with some reservations and caution, the conclusions of that reasoning, and we rely on them in practice. It would be nice if we could show that it is in some sense rational or reasonable to do so, that this is not merely an instinct that we cannot help following or a convention that we just happen to have adopted.
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Notes
A. J. Ayer, Probability and Evidence (London: Macmillan, 1972) esp. pp. 3–6, 63, 88 and 91–110.
Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery ( London, Hutchinson, 1972 ) pp. 407–9.
Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard, 1955) chs 3 and 4.
J. M. Keynes, A Treatise on Probability ( London, Macmillan, 1921 ) pp. 47–8.
See J. L. Mackie, The Cement of the Universe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974) pp. 208–28; J. S. Mill, A System of Logic III. 5. ix and 22.
J. L. Mackie, Problems from Locke ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 ) pp. 56–60.
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© 1979 Graham Macdonald, Michael Dummett, P. F. Strawson, David Pears, D. M. Armstrong, Charles Taylor, J. L. Mackie, David Wiggins, John Foster, Richard Wollheim, Peter Unger, Bernard Williams, Stephan Körner and A. J. Ayer
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Mackie, J.L. (1979). A Defence of Induction. In: Macdonald, G.F. (eds) Perception and Identity. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04862-5_6
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