A Confutation of the Pessimistic Induction
Journal for General Philosophy of Science 42 (1):75-84 (2011)
| Abstract | The pessimistic induction holds that successful past scientific theories are completely false, so successful current ones are completely false too. I object that past science did not perform as poorly as the pessimistic induction depicts. A close study of the history of science entitles us to construct an optimistic induction that would neutralize the pessimistic induction. Also, even if past theories were completely false, it does not even inductively follow that the current theories will also turn out to be completely false because the current theories are more successful and have better birth qualities than the past theories. Finally, the extra success and better birth qualities justify an anti-induction in favor of the present theories. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Current Theory Integrations of Scientific Fields Past Theory Pessimistic Induction | |||||||||
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