Abstract

Scientifi c theories and hypotheses make claims that go well beyond what we can immediately observe. How can we come to know whether such claims are true? The obvious approach is to see what a hypothesis says about the observationally accessible parts of the world. If it gets that wrong, then it must be false; if it gets that right, then it may have some claim to being true. Any sensible a empt to construct a logic that captures how we may come to reasonably believe the falsehood or truth of scientifi c hypotheses must be built on this idea. Philosophers refer to such logics as logics of confi rmation or as confi rmation theories