A material dissolution of the problem of induction

John D. Norton

pp. 671-690

in: Jeanne Peijnenburg, Sylvia Wenmackers (eds), Infinite regress in decision theory, philosophy of science, and formal epistemology, Synthese 191 (4), 2014.

Abstract

In a formal theory of induction, inductive inferences are licensed by universal schemas. In a material theory of induction, inductive inferences are licensed by facts. With this change in the conception of the nature of induction, I argue that the celebrated “problem of induction” can no longer be set up and is thereby dissolved. Attempts to recreate the problem in the material theory of induction fail. They require relations of inductive support to conform to an unsustainable, hierarchical empiricism.