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When Probabilistic Support is Inductive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Alberto Mura
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Abstract

This note makes a contribution to the issue raised in a paper by Popper and Miller (1983) in which it was claimed that probabilistic support is purely deductive. Developing R. C. Jeffrey's remarks, a new general approach to the crucial concept of “going beyond” is here proposed. By means of it a quantitative measure of the inductive component of a probabilistic inference is reached. This proposal leads to vindicating the view that typical predictive probabilistic inferences by enumeration and analogy are purely inductive.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 278 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank David Miller for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to Marcello Pera for help and private discussions on this topic. Special thanks are to be reserved for an anonymous referee: the final version of this note has been considerably influenced by his remarks. The responsibility for what is asserted in it rests however entirely with me. I am also indebted to Piers Bursill-Hall for his stylistic suggestions.

References

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