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Assessing Inductive Logics Empirically

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Howard Smokler
Howard Smokler*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
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Extract

Philosophers of science have recently been urged by Arthur Fine to collaborate with physicists and with other scientists in constructing scientific theories.2 What I am proposing is a collaboration at the other pole of scientific activity; the pole of experiment.

I consider this effort to be part of a tendency within philosophy to naturalize epistemology. The banner of naturalistic epistemology has attracted such men as Quine and Goldman. I consider the effort as one small part of that program which involves not only theoretical integration of at least portions of the two corpuses of knowledge, but the employment of methodologies which are common to them both.

The theory of inductive logic today is in stasis. A number of highly ingenious and very sophisticated theories of inference vie for primacy. As in the case of many philosophical theses, no closure seems in sight.

Type
Part IX. Belief, Cause and Induction
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 525 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

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Footnotes

1

I wish to express my appreciation to Jonathan Dancy and Allan Franklin for encouragement and criticisms. None of the errors however are their responsibility.

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