Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:40:18.060Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why There Can't Be a Logic of Induction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Stuart S. Glennan
Stuart S. Glennan*
Affiliation:
Butler University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Carnap's attempt to develop an inductive logic has been criticized on a variety of grounds, and while there may be some philosophers who believe that difficulties with Camap's approach can be overcome by further elaborations and modifications of his system, I think it is fair to say that the consensus is that the approach as a whole cannot succeed. In writing a paper on problems with inductive logic (and with Camap's approach in particular), I might therefore be accused of beating a dead horse. However, there are still some (e.g., Spirtes, Glymour and Scheines 1993) who seem to believe that purely formal methods for scientific inference can be developed. It may still then be useful to perfonn an autopsy on a dead horse when establishing the cause of death can shed light on issues of current concern.

Type
Part II. Explanation, Induction, and Linguistic Representation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 78 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by 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.)

Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Erich Reck and Mike Price for comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and Howard Stein for discussions on Carnap's views on induction.

References

Brody, B.A., and Grandy, R.E. (ed.) (1989), Readings in the Philosophy of Science. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1945), “On Inductive Logic”, Philosophy of Science. 12: 72–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. (1950), Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1952), The Continuum of Inductive Methods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1955), Statistical and Inductive Probability. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Galois Institute of Mathematics and Art. Reprinted in Brody and Grandy 1989.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1963), “Replies and Systematic Expositions”, in Schilpp, P. (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XI. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 859–1016.Google Scholar
Glennan, S. S. (1992), “Mechanisms, Models and Causation”. Ph.D. Dissertation, the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980), Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kemeny, J. (1963), “Carnap's Theory of Probability and Induction”, in Schilpp, P. (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XI. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 711–738.Google Scholar
Longino, H E. (1990), Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spirtes, P., Glymour, G., and Scheines, R. (1993), Causation, Prediction, and Search. Lecture Notes in Statistics, Vol. 81. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar