Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-plnhv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-08-19T04:42:35.883Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Conception of Inductive Logic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Patrick Maher
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I conceive of inductive logic as a project of explication. The explicandum is one of the meanings of the word `probability' in ordinary language; I call it inductive probability and argue that it is logical, in a certain sense. The explicatum is a conditional probability function that is specified by stipulative definition. This conception of inductive logic is close to Carnap's, but common objections to Carnapian inductive logic (the probabilities don't exist, are arbitrary, etc.) do not apply to this conception.

Information

Type
Confirmation and Inductive Logic
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Miriam Solomon , December 2006 , pp. 513 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Carnap, Rudolf ([1950] 1962), Logical Foundations of Probability. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. (1952), The Continuum of Inductive Methods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf (1963), “Replies and Systematic Expositions,” in Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 859–1013.Google Scholar
Franklin, J. (2001), “Resurrecting Logical Probability,” Erkenntnis 55:277–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillies, Donald (2000), Philosophical Theories of Probability. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian (2001), An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hájek, Alan (2003), “Interpretations of Probability,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2003/entries/probability.Google Scholar
Howson, Colin, and Urbach, Peter (1993), Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. 2nd ed. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Percival, Philip (2000), “Probability,” in Newton-Smith, W. H. (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Blackwell, 358–372.Google Scholar
Quine, Quine Willard Van (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, Frank P. (1926), “Truth and Probability,” in Kyburg, Henry E. Jr. and Smokler, Howard E. (eds.), Studies in Subjective Probability. 2nd ed. Huntington, NY: Krieger, 25–52.Google Scholar
Roeper, P., and Leblanc, H. (1999), Probability Theory and Probability Logic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. (1967), The Foundations of Scientific Inference. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyrms, Brian (1986), Choice and Chance: An Introduction to Inductive Logic. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1989), Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar