Article ID: CBB001024145

On Popper's Strong Inductivism (or Strongly Inconsistent Anti-Inductivism) (2011)

unapi

It is generally accepted that Popper`s degree of corroboration, though inductivist in a very general and weak sense, is not inductivist in a strong sense, i.e. when by `inductivism' we mean the thesis that the right measure of evidential support has a probabilistic character. The aim of this paper is to challenge this common view by arguing that Popper can be regarded as an inductivist, not only in the weak broad sense but also in a narrower, probabilistic sense. In section 2, first, I begin by briefly characterizing the relevant notion of inductivism that is at stake here; second, I present and discuss the main Popperian argument against it and show that in the only reading in which the argument is formally it is restricted to cases of predicted evidence, and that even if restricted in this way the argument is formally valid it is nevertheless materially unsound. In section 3, I analyze the desiderata that, according to Popper, any acceptable measure for evidential support must satisfy, I clean away its ad-hoc components and show that all the remaining desiderata are satisfied by inductuvist-in-strict-sense measures. In section 4 I demonstrate that two of these desiderata, accepted by Popper, imply that in cases of predicted evidence any measure that satisfies them is qualitatively indistinguishable from conditional probability. Finally I defend that this amounts to a kind of strong inductivism that enters into conflict with Popper's anti-inductivist argument and declarations, and that this conflict does not depend on the incremental versus non-incremental distinction for evidential-support measures, making Popper's position inconsistent in any reading.

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Authors & Contributors
Miller, David
Gambetta, Emanuele
Bianchini, Sara
Geoffrey Stokes
Berardi, Nicola
Wray, K. Brad
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
History of Psychiatry
Bruniana & Campanelliana: Ricerche Filosofiche e Materiali Storico-testuali
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Publishers
Cambridge University Press
Gangemi Editore
Altrimedia Edizioni
Springer
Edizioni ETS
Concepts
Philosophy of science
History of philosophy of science
Philosophy
Induction
Epistemology
Methodology of science; scientific method
People
Popper, Karl Raimund
Kuhn, Thomas S.
Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
Stallo, John Bernhard
Mach, Ernst
Lakatos, Imre
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
16th century
Places
Europe
United States
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