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Georg Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) started his studies in theoretical philosophy at the University of Helsinki in 1934. His teacher, Professor Eino Kaila (1890–1958), was an associate of the Vienna Circle who had changed the course of Finnish philosophy with his own version of logical empiricism. Under Kaila's supervision, von Wright wrote his early studies on probability and defended his doctoral thesis The Logical Problem of Induction in 1941. Von Wright met Ludwig Wittgenstein in Cambridge in 1939 and 1947 and eventually became his successor there in 1948–1951. Later, von Wright characterized these two philosophers as his "father figures": "Kaila had turned me into a logical positivist or empiricist. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, thoroughly eradicated this personality of mine." This article studies von Wright's changing relation to logical empiricism. The main sources include his correspondence with Kaila in 1937–1958 and his books Den logiska empirismen (in Swedish in 1943; in Finnish in 1945) and Logik, filosofi och språk (in Swedish in 1957, in Finnish in 1958). In his "Intellectual Autobiography" (1989), von Wright described the former book as "a farewell to the philosophy of my student years". Wittgenstein's influence can be seen in von Wright's denial of the unity of science and his cool cultural pessimism as expressed in his critical essays. But it is also evident that logic and exact thinking continued to be central tools and ingredients of his subsequent and highly appreciated work as an analytic philosopher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gustav Theodor Fechner was one of the main proponents of inductive metaphysics in the 19th century. The idea of inductive metaphysics is to use empirical sources and inductive forms of inference in metaphysics. Although this sounds like a research program which might well appeal to scientifically minded philosophers, some of Fechner's metaphysical conclusions look very suspicious from a scientific viewpoint. For example, Fechner famously argues that the planets and stars are animated by a soul and that the same holds for the whole universe. In the present article it is shown that Fechner's mystical cosmological views are based on a principle of analogy which is too permissive and that as a result of that his central argument to the conclusion that the earth is animated by a soul is not correct. As the article argues, the principle Fechner bases his inference on has to be supplemented by a causal condition along the lines of Mary Hesse's account of analogical inferences, a condition Fechner at least implicitly recognizes but fails to meet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inductive Metaphysics (IM) combines an anti-aprioristic emphasis on an empirical and scientific basis for metaphysics with an insistence on a specifically philosophical abductive theory-building. Since the latter specifically philosophical work is not empirical itself, it may in a liberal sense be called apriori. This paper highlights this apriori dimension within IM by a case study on Structuralism, the view that fundamental reality consists of a network of relations (and properties), which a number of philosophers consider to be suggested by modern physics. Focussing on Dasgupta's algebraic Generalism, the author argues that Structuralism suffers from a severe entailment problem, because the relations-spanning apparatus must stand for metaphysically fundamental forms. Schaffer's contention that there are no entailment problems is rejected. Advocates of IM are well advised to take seriously their own insistence on metaphysical abduction and not to one-sidedly emphasise the empirical input: the elaboration of exact metaphysical theories and the apriori evaluation of their inherent tenability is a constituent of IM no less important than the consideration of scientific input. More traditional ways of metaphysical reasoning inevitably survive as an essential dimension within IM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The critique of logic, as it was taught on the British Isles, intensified at the beginning of the 19th century. A systematic critique of Aristotelian (syllogistic) logic was undertaken from the standpoint of common sense philosophy chiefly by Scottish philosophers, followers of T. Reid. E. Copleston of Oxford came to logic’s defense. His student, R. Whately, later wrote the textbook Elements of Logic (1826), in which he replied to the objections of Scottish philosophers. The textbook correctly explains that systems of deductive logic need not suffer from the petitio principii fallacy. J. S. Mill at first wrote a positive review of the textbook, but later published his System of Logic. In it, he puts forward the contrary view when evaluating the role of Aristotelian (deductive logic), objecting to the supposedly irredeemable fallacy of petitio principii. The fallacy can be avoided, he argues, in an inductive logic proposed by him. Mill’s objection to the Aristotelian syllogism was based on a misunderstanding of the analytic novelty of the knowledge contained in the conclusion of a valid argument. Mill’s explication of logic is contradictory, based on an associative psychologism and sensualism. The objection against deductive logic is simply mistaken. Mill’s logic and his positions were very critically appraised already by S. Jevons and the standard overviews of the history of logic fail to mention it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hungarian-born philosopher of science Imre Lakatos introduces the methodology of scientific research programs, and also makes a famous distinction between "progressive" and "degenerating" programs. Although Lakatos does not give extensive guidance as to whether philosophical rather than scientific theories could also be judged in this way, he does give some intriguing hints in his discussion of a debate on induction between Rudolf Carnap and Karl Popper. After considering two extant but misguided attempts to use "degenerating" as a polemical term in philosophy, this article gathers the aforementioned hints from Lakatos and a few others from Alfred North Whitehead in an effort to identify what a "progressive philosophy" might look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present six significant open problems in Pure Inductive Logic, together with their background and current status, with the intention of raising awareness and leading ultimately to their resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I defend an inductivist solution to Hume’s Problem of Induction against the popular counterinduction parody argument. Once we examine the structure of the inductivist position closely, we will see that there is no coherent way to parody it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper in this journal, Schramm (Erkenntnis 79:571-591, ) presents what he takes to be an answer to Goodman's New Riddle of Induction. His solution relies on the technical notion of evidential significance, which is meant to distinguish two ways that evidence may bear on a hypothesis: either via support or confirmation. As he puts his view in slogan form: 'confirmation is support by significant evidence' (p. 571). Once we make this distinction, Schramm claims, we see that Goodman's famous riddle is dissolved, and we are no longer forced into the 'intolerable result' that anything confirms anything. Schramm makes a number of incisive observations in his paper, but I do not think he has solved the New Riddle. There are two reasons for this. First, Schramm has an overly narrow conception of what the Riddle amounts to; I would venture to guess that it is narrower than that of most contemporary philosophers. Thus his proposal does not address the primary concern. Second, Schramm's notion of significant evidence relies on a counterfactual condition that bears more than a passing resemblance to that made famous by Jackson in his (J Philos 72:113-131, ) paper on the topic. However, Jackson's proposal faces several well-known counterexamples (and even charges of petitio principii), some of which can be adapted into Schramm's framework. Schramm's solution thus inherits a number of outstanding problems from Jackson's proposal, which he has not shown us how to handle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights regarding his argument against philosophers Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead who assumed an asymmetry between the logocentric predicament and the problem of induction. The author discusses the internal relation of justification with deductive and inductive inferences. He mentions that the two philosophers believes that the symmetry will show that skepticism was unpreventable during justification for reasoning's structure.

In this article, the author reflects on philosopher John Finnis's ideas and works on ethics and moral absolutes. She believes that Finnis's work is mostly in practical philosophy including human good and practical reasonableness. Also discussed are views of philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant on general skepticism about inductive inference.

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Forms of justification for inductive machine learning techniques are discussed and classified into four types. This is done with a view to introduce some of these techniques and their justificatory guarantees to the attention of philosophers, and to initiate a discussion as to whether they must be treated separately or rather can be viewed consistently from within a single framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on David Hume's problem of induction. It presents the various interpretations made by epistemologists to explain the idea behind Hume's problem of induction, as well as the inductive scepticism. It asserts that many philosophers have overlooked a way of interpreting the conceptual problem along with the potential way of solving it. It notes that Hume's argument involves the understanding of inductive justification and inductive knowledge. It says that Hume's sceptical solution to the problem of induction tells that people have a custom and a habit of continuing to form inductive beliefs, but it is nature which prevents them from ignoring observational evidence.

It is widely agreed that Hume'sdescriptionof human inductive reasoning is inadequate. But many philosophers think that this inadequacy in no way affects the force of Hume's argument for theunjustifiabilityof inductive reasoning. I argue that this constellation of opinions contains a serious tension, given that Hume was not merely pointing out that induction is fallible. I then explore a recent diagnosis of where Hume's sceptical argument goes wrong, due to Elliott Sober. Sober argues that Hume committed a quantifoer-shift fallacy, i.e. inferred a statement of∀∃ form from one of∀∃ form. The implications of this diagnosis for the traditional problem of induction are briefly examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the proposal by Stephen Hetherington of a correct criterion for selecting the hypotheses confirmed by their instances. Conclusions on inductive reasoning by naturalistic philosophers; Scientific theory of David Hume to explain the frequent reliability of the hypotheses; Acquisition of expectations upon the observation of contiguous events.

Presents an argument contrary to the view addressed by philosopher David Hume pertaining to the problems of religion with respect to philosophy. Credibility and importance of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments; Emergence of the deism controversy; Interpretation of the philosopher on inductive skepticism and a future state.

Examines the principles of Georg Cantor on the problem of induction. Context of the philosophy of David Hume; Presentation of the first and second principles of generation by Cantor; Philosophy of Whitehead on the problem of induction.

The purpose of this article is to explore the implications for sociology of adopting one of the historically rooted conceptions of science, namely the methodology of scientific research programs, by comparing it with the standard methodology of induction. Sociology has founded its scientific credentials on imitating the method of the physical sciences as understood by philosophers. Organizing and concretizing the comparison requires examples of each methodology that study a similar object in a substantively similar manner. Induction then is the process of inferring causal explanations from "pre-existing facts." Among the philosophers of science Karl Popper has been the most celebrated opponent of this view, arguing that without a mechanism for selecting among the facts there is no way of inferring theories. Theories or, as he calls them, conjectures are necessarily prior to the facts that they organize and select. Furthermore, facts are not to be used to verify conjectures but to refute them. Although this is a widely defended position, it is also untenable.

Compares the methodologies of philosophers Charles S. Peirce and William S. Jevons in topics such as induction, deduction and fallibilism. Mathematics, philosophy and idioscopy as the general branches of knowledge; Evolutionary standpoint of Peirce concerning the historical character of scientific inquiry; Overview of the theory of abduction.