Colin Howson offers a solution to one of the central, unsolved problems of Western philosophy, the problem of induction. In the mid-eighteenth century David Hume argued that successful prediction tells us nothing about the truth of the predicting theory. No matter how many experimental tests a hypothesis passes, nothing can be legitimately inferred about its truth or probable truth. But physical theory routinely predicts the values of observable magnitudes to many small places of decimals and within very small ranges of error. The chance of this sort of predictive success without a true theory seems so remote that the possibility should be dismissed. This suggests that Hume's argument must be wrong; but there is still no consensus on where exactly this flaw lies. Howson argues that there is no flaw, and examines the implications of this disturbing conclusion for relation between science and its empirical base.
Reviews
Delivered with pace and consistent intelligence. The book covers a great deal of ground, including Hume's sceptical argument, the new riddle of induction, naturalised epistemology, reliabilism, scientific realism, deductivism, objective chances and Hume on miracles, all from a Bayesian perspective...often provocative and repeatedly enlightening. * Peter Lipton British Journal for the Philosophy of Science *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198250388
Author Colin Howson
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 317g
Dimensions(mm) 215mm * 137mm * 13mm