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For Universal Rules, Against Induction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John Worrall
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Abstract

This essay criticizes John Norton's 2010 defense of the thesis that “all induction is local.” Norton's local inductions are bound, if cogent, to involve general principles, and the need to accredit these general principles threatens to lead to all the usual problems associated with the ‘problem of induction’. Norton, in fact, recognizes this threat, but his responses are inadequate. The right response involves not induction but a sophisticated version of hypothetico-deduction. Norton's secondary thesis—that if there is a general account of cogent scientific reasoning, then it is certainly not the one supported by personalist Bayesians—is also criticized.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 5 , December 2010 , pp. 740 - 753
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I am grateful to my fellow symposiasts, Peter Achinstein, Thomas Kelly, and John Norton, and to Carl Hoefer and an anonymous referee.

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