Predictive Simplicity (eBook)

Induction Exhum'd

George J. Klir (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2013 | 1. Auflage
210 Seiten
Elsevier Science (Verlag)
978-1-4832-8702-7 (ISBN)

Infos

The book attempts to develop an account of simplicity in terms of testability, and to use this account to provide an adequate characterization of induction, one immune to the class of problems suggested by Nelson Goodman. It is then shown that the past success of induction, thus characterized, constitutes evidence for its future success. A qualitative measure of confirmation is developed, and this measure - along with the considerations of simplicity - is used to provide an account of the consilience of inductions, and also an inductivist account of the structure and progress of scientific theory. An appendix extends the treatment of simplicity to statistical distributions and provides a reasonable interpretation of the maximum entropy principle. Thus, this book is an attempt to characterize induction in terms of a well-defined notion of simplicity and to use that characterization as a basis of an account of empirical, and in particular, scientific reasoning.

Inhalt

Front Cover 1
Predictive Simplicity: Induction Exhum'd 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 8
Dedication 6
Preface 12
Part I: The Evolution of the Problem 16
Section 1: The Justification of Induction 18
Chapter 1. Hume's Problem 18
1 The scope of induction 18
2 The point of justification 20
3 Major lines of progress 22
Notes 25
Chapter 2. The Inductivist Solution 26
1 Braithwaite's approach 27
2 Black's approach 29
3 Reasons for the failure of the inductive approach 31
Notes 32
Chapter 3. The Pragmatic Vindication 33
1 Reichenbach's vindication 33
2 Salmon's modifications 35
3 Criticisms of the pragmatic approach 36
4 Reasons for the failure of the pragmatic approach 41
Notes 42
Chapter 4. The Dissolution of the Problem 43
1 The analyticity of the reasonableness of induction 43
2 Strawson's claims 44
3 The analyticity of reasonableness and the naturalistic fallacy 45
4 Goodman's analogy with the justification of deduction 49
Notes 50
Section 2: The Characterization of Induction 52
Chapter 5. Goodman's New Riddle and the Justification of Induction 52
1 The new riddle 52
2 The effect of the new riddle on solutions to Hume's problem 53
Notes 56
Chapter 6. A Closer Look at Goodman's New Riddle 58
1 Five conditions necessary to a solution 58
2 Goodman's own solution 62
3 Suggestions for a positive approach 64
Notes 65
Part II: The Resolution of the Problem 68
Section 3: An Account of Simplicity 70
Chapter 7. Simplicity: Raw 70
1 Simplicity as testability 70
2 Prior accounts of testability 71
3 A new account of testability 73
4 A more systematic treatment 74
5 The definition of simplicity 78
6 Several examples 78
7 Simplicity, logical strength, emergent properties, natural kinds 81
Notes 83
Chapter 8. Simplicity: Refined 84
1 Simplicity orderings 84
2 A preliminary distinction 85
3 The revised account 86
4 The simplicity of mathematical relationships 87
5 An extension of the account of simplicity to cases of dimension 89
6 Several examples involving considerations of dimension 91
7 A conflict of standards 92
8 Some more substantive results 94
9 Concluding remarks 97
Notes 98
Section 4: The Explication of Induction 100
Chapter 9. Induction as Simplicity 100
1 The scope of this definition 100
2 Goodman's new riddle 101
3 Some remarks on induction and projectibility 106
Notes 106
Chapter 10. Induction Justified 107
1 The gist of the justification 107
2 Some preliminaries 107
3 The justification 110
4 Coarse graining 112
5 A modification of Hempel's special consequence condition 117
6 Response to objections 119
7 Remarks on the nature of this justification 122
Notes 124
Section 5: Some Implications of Induction 125
Chapter 11. Inductive Logic and Confirmation 125
1 Inductive logic as opposed to probability theory and mathematical statistics 125
2 A non-probabilistic component of inductive logic – simplicity 127
3 A probabilistic component of inductive logic – evidential support 129
4 The paradoxes of confirmation 138
Notes 143
Chapter 12. The Consilience of Inductions 147
1 Arguments that theories are dispensible 148
2 An account of inductive systematization 151
3 The impossibility of a purely probabilistic account of consilience 154
4 The importance of consilience 157
Notes 158
Chapter 13. The Resilience of Induction 160
1 Popper's criticisms of the inductivist program 160
2 An inductivist critique of Popper's program 164
3 An inductivist critique of Lakatos's modifications 165
4 Replies to 'incommensurabilist' programs 169
Notes 172
Chapter 14. A Logic of Scientific Discovery 174
1 The role of simplicity 174
2 The role of confirmation 179
3 Combined considerations 180
Notes 183
Appendix: A Measure of Statistical Simplicity 185
1 A measure of statistical simplicity 186
2 The maximum-entropy principle 188
3 The interpretation of the maximum-entropy principle 191
4 The resolution of the incompatibility between the maximum-entropy principle and Bayesian conditionalization 193
5 The justification of particular prior probability distributions 194
Notes 199
REFERENCES 202
NAME INDEX 208
SUBJECT INDEX 210

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.10.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Logik
• Themenwelt: Technik
• ISBN-10: 1-4832-8702-5 / 1483287025
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4832-8702-7 / 9781483287027