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A Relative Notion of Natural Generalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Nathan Stemmer*
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University

Extract

According to our intuitions, certain generalizations are better confirmed by positive instances than others. In order to characterize the difference between these generalizations, I have proposed in [3] to investigate the generalizing behavior of living beings. Such an investigation makes it possible to classify into different categories the generalizations that are intuitively confirmed by their positive instances and those that are not intuitively confirmed by such instances. One important aspect of my treatment, however, has been shown to be unsatisfactory: sentences that are logically equivalent may belong to different categories. In this paper, I shall first give a short summary of the relevant parts of my previous paper, and then I shall try to improve it in order to avoid the undesirable result.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

REFERENCES

Baege, B.Zur Entwicklung der Verhaltensweisen junger Hunde in den ersten drei Lebensmonaten.” Zeitschrift für Hundeforschung 3 (1933): 364.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. C. The Logic of Decision. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.Google Scholar
Stemmer, N.Three Problems in Induction.” Synthese 23 (1971): 287308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar