Logical and Empirical Assumptions of Validity of Inductions

Abstract

The problem of the justifiability of induction has a rather long tradition in philosophy of science. On one side of the dispute we meet many advocates and codifiers of inductive thinking, and — not least — the practice of several centuries of scientific investigations based in their essential aspects upon the application of induction. On the other side, beginning with Hume, are many of its critics. Some of them — like Reichenbach — have demonstrated the lack of sufficient justifiability of inductive method, but have nevertheless sanctioned its use for pragmatic reasons as the best thing we have for trying to discover the general regularities of the world around us. Others have rejected induction in general, arguing — like Popper — for an approach whereby we should rather try to falsify the hypotheses than to confirm them inductively.

This paper was written during the author’s Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, California.