Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262015936
- eISBN:
- 9780262298780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015936.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter criticizes a familiar group of ideas about “inductive” inference, and uses that criticism to promote a different group. Many hold on to the position that induction is rational because, ...
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This chapter criticizes a familiar group of ideas about “inductive” inference, and uses that criticism to promote a different group. Many hold on to the position that induction is rational because, if not, factual knowledge will collapse. For the purposes of this chapter, induction is regarded as a pattern of arguments used to answer questions of proportion or frequency, e.g. “how many Fs are G?” “what is the rate of G in the Fs?” “Are all Fs G?” Nelson Goodman suggests, however, that the F and the G in a good inductive argument cannot simply be anything. Some kind of “naturalness” constraint is required on the involved predicates. Most philosophers would agree with Goodman even if they do not agree regarding what the constraint is or from where it comes.Less
This chapter criticizes a familiar group of ideas about “inductive” inference, and uses that criticism to promote a different group. Many hold on to the position that induction is rational because, if not, factual knowledge will collapse. For the purposes of this chapter, induction is regarded as a pattern of arguments used to answer questions of proportion or frequency, e.g. “how many Fs are G?” “what is the rate of G in the Fs?” “Are all Fs G?” Nelson Goodman suggests, however, that the F and the G in a good inductive argument cannot simply be anything. Some kind of “naturalness” constraint is required on the involved predicates. Most philosophers would agree with Goodman even if they do not agree regarding what the constraint is or from where it comes.
