A mug's game? Solving the problem of induction with metaphysical presuppositions
In John Earman & John Norton (eds.), PhilSci Archive (2005)
| Abstract | A Mug's Game? Solving the Problem of Induction with Metaphysical Presuppositions Nicholas Maxwell Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science at University College London Email: nicholas.maxwell@ucl.ac.uk Website: www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk Abstract This paper argues that a view of science, expounded and defended elsewhere, solves the problem of induction. The view holds that we need to see science as accepting a hierarchy of metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these theses asserting less and less as we go up the hierarchy. It may seem that this view must suffer from vicious circularity, in so far as accepting physical theories is justified by an appeal to metaphysical theses in turn justified by the success of science. But this is rebutted. A thesis high up in the hierarchy asserts that the universe is such that the element of circularity, just indicated, is legitimate and justified, and not vicious. Acceptance of the thesis is in turn justified without appeal to the success of science. It may seem that the practical problem of induction can only be solved along these lines if there is a justification of the truth of the metaphysical theses in question. It is argued that this demand must be rejected as it stems from an irrational conception of science. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Prublem of Induction Karl Popper Aim-Oriented Empiricism | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesNicholas Maxwell (1997). Must Science Make Cosmological Assumptions If It is to Be Rational?,. In T. Kelly (ed.), The Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the Irish Philosophical Society Spring Conference. Irish Philosophical Society.
William Todd (1964). Counterfactual Conditionals and the Presuppositions of Induction. Philosophy of Science 31 (2):101-110.
Nicholas Maxwell (2005). Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Aim-Oriented Empiricism. Philosophia 32 (1-4):181-239.
Nicholas Maxwell (2006). Practical Certainty and Cosmological Conjectures. In Michael Rahnfeld (ed.), Is there Certain Knowledge? Leipziger Universitätsverlag.
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Nicholas Maxwell (1993). Induction and Scientific Realism: Einstein Versus Van Fraassen Part One: How to Solve the Problem of Induction. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1):61-79.
Nicholas Maxwell (1979). Induction, Simplicity and Scientific Progress. Scientia 114:629-653.
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