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University Microfilms International 300 N INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target” for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)”. If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure you of complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark it is an indication that the film inspector noticed either blurred copy because of movement during exposure, or duplicate copy. Unless we meant to delete copyrighted materials that should not have been filmed, you will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. If copyrighted materials were deleted you will find a target note listing the pages in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., is part of the material being photo­ graphed the photographer has followed a definite method in "sectioning” the material. It is customary to begin filming at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue from left to right :n equal sections with small overlaps. If necessary, sectioning is continued again—beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. For any illustrations that cannot be reproduced satisfactorily by xerography, photographic prints can be purchased at additional cost and tipped into your xerographic copy. Requests can be made to our Dissertations Customer Services Department. 5. Some pages in anydocument may have indistinct print. In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB RD . ANN ARBOR. Ml 48106 Josephson, John Richard EXPLANATION AND INDUCTION The Ohio Slate University University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 EXPLANATION AND INDUCTION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John R. Josephson, B.S., M.S. * * * * * The Ohio State University 1982 Reading Committee: Approved By Ronald Laymon Peter K. Machamer William Lycan Department of Philosophy (5) Copyright by John R. Josephson 1982 To my mother, who is in many ways a sine qua non for the existence of this work. VITA November 2, 1944. Eorn - Cleveland, Ohio 1968 ..................... B.S., The Ohio State University (Mathematics) 1970..................... M.S., The Ohio State University (Mathematics) 1971-1982 Teaching Associate, Department of Mathematics; and Teaching Associate, Department of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Philosophy Philosophy of Science. Professors Peter Machamer and Ronald Laymon. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION . -......................... ii VITA .................................................. iii LIST OF F I G U R E S .................................... iv Chapter 1. Skeptical Considerations .................. 1 A. Cartesian Doubts ...................... 1 B. Three Weaknesses of Empiricism . 9 C. The Task of This Dissertation . 44 2. A Stand Against Skepticism: Foundations for a Logic of Induction . 49 A. The Epistemic Starting Place . 49 B. Is it Reasonable to be Reasonable? . 52 C. The A-B Perspective .................. 57 D. Inductive Proceedures ................... 62 E. Inductive Rationality ................... 67 F. Explanatory Coherence .................. 69 G. Inference to the Best Explanation . 71 H. The Present D o x a ...................... 74 I. The Stability of B e l i e f ............... 79 J. M e m o r y .................................... 85 K. Sense Perception ...................... 87 L. The Empirical B a s e ...................... 91 M. Statement of the T h e s i s ............... 94 3. Foundations: Explanatory Inference rather than Inductive Generalization . 97 A. Theoretical Entities .................. 98 B. Emergent Certainty ...................... 101 C. Absorption and Insightfulness . 107 4. The Problem of Induction .................. 133 A. Where is the Problem? .................. 133 B. Reichenbach's Vindication of Induction Improved: Probabilities as Propensities 138 iv Page C. The "New Riddle of Induction": Projecting Stabilities .............. 165 D. Where Did the Problem Go? .... 176 E p i l o g .................................... 181 APPENDIXES A. Every Real Number on [0,1] is Accessible as a Limit of Relative Frequencies .... 190 B. A Non-Convergent Sequence of Relative Frequencies ..................... 193 C. Strangs, Decastrangs, and Kilostrangs: Proposals for a Vocabulary for Low Likelihood Events ..................... 195 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 197 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Circuit Diagram of a Hume Counter Example Machine .................... 33 Figure 2. The Organization of a Mackie Counterexample Machine ..... ......... 36 Figure 3. Decision Matrix for the Hypothesis of the Great D e c e p t i o n ........................ 54 vi Chapter 1 Skeptical Considerations A. Cartesian Doubts There is no proposition whatever for which we cannot entertain a particle of doubt. I cannot be completely sure that I am not being syste­ matically deceived by a very powerful and evil being, perhaps one so powerful that it can do anything which is logically self-consistent. The deception may extend, therefore, to "inner" as well as to "outer" perceptions; a being so powerful would be able to confuse even my percep­ tions of my own mental states— dibble with my judgments, so to speak. I cannot be completely sure that what seems most clear to me is not really an illusion, or that it is really clear to me at all despite its seeming so. My reasonings them­ selves might be a complete muddle, and I totally unaware of it. My beliefs, even those about my own thoughts, may bear no likeness at all to the way things really are. In short, anything I believe may actually be false, or worse yet, completely unrelated to reality. Of course, if my thinking is a complete muddle, probably nothing I have said so far makes any sense. But I don't really think that my thinking is in such poor shape. 2 In particular, I think that I am making sense here and that what I am saying is true: absolute certainty is not pos­ sible. Of course I am not absolutely certain of that; yet it is too restrictive to require absolute certainty before we speak and assert, and I won't require it of myself. Descartes thought that there are propositions that are immune from doubt. In this he seems to be mistaken. The proposition, 'I exist' can even be doubted. Perhaps all that really exists is this ongoing stream of consciousness, with the perceptions, musings, impulses, doubts . that make it up. There is no necessary con­ nection between the existence of a thought and the exis­ tence of a thinker. It is conceivable that there are thoughts, but no thinkers thinking them; no selves at all, least of all myself. This stream of thoughts is not itself a thinker— not, perhaps, anything other than a stream of mental occurrences. It may not even be a unified thing at all. I am not this stream of thoughts. The particular thought 'I exist' might flicker into existence for a moment, unthought by any being, refer truthfully only to itself, and then pop right out of existence again. I, as thinker, am not this particular thought either. If this is con­ ceivable, even just barely conceivable, then a particle of doubt is possible as to my own existence. 3 Furthermore, even if while introspecting I should suddenly "directly" perceive myself, I would have no way of being absolutely certain that I was perceiving correctly, since my inner perceptions are as uncertain as my outer ones. I might suspect that the "I" I see, seeing itself see itself, is just some fantastic free-floating illusion. Thus, I cannot be absolutely certain of my own exis­ tence . Yet surely it is certain that something exists. There is at least this stream of thoughts, with a briefly occurring self-referential thought 'I am'. Can I really doubt the proposition that 'Something exists'? To begin with, I can doubt the existence of anything but the presently active parts of the stream of con­ sciousness. I have already managed to conceive that the events of this stream of consciousness might be the whole of reality; now I realize that I cannot be completely sure that this consciousness has any history. Maybe all of this mental activity began only an instant ago, and consequently any memory I call up is false. Perhaps THIS THOUGHT EVENT (say it's an 'I am') is all that exists, all that has ever existed, all that will ever exist. Furthermore, since I may not be clearly perceiving THIS THOUGHT EVENT, even while it happens, any descrip­ tion of it is questionable, even the description of it as a "thought event" or as an "I am" thought. I had better just say that perhaps all there is is THIS. Can I question the existence even of THIS? Is it conceivable that there is really nothing at all? I will admit that it is a hard thing to conceive, but I think that I can do it. The task is to conceive that the universe may be so totally void that nothing whatever exists— not my conception of the void, not even the void itself. Such a conception seems to have been approached by the author of the Heart Sutra, and it helps my imagination along to con­ template the following fragment from it: Therefore in emptiness, no form, No feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness; No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; No realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness; No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old-aae-and-ueath and also no extinction of them; No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path; No cognition, also no attainment ...
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