Another way to mitigate the force of inductive skepticism is to restrict its scope. Karl Popper, for instance, regarded the problem of induction as insurmountable, but he argued that science is not in fact based on inductive inferences at all (Popper 1935 [1959]). Rather he presented a deductivist view of science, according to which it proceeds by making bold conjectures, and then attempting to falsify those conjectures. In the simplest version of this account, when a hypothesis makes a prediction which is found to be false in an experiment, the hypothesis is rejected as falsified. The logic of this procedure is fully deductive. The hypothesis entails the prediction, and the falsity of the prediction refutes the hypothesis by modus tollens. Thus, Popper claimed that science was not based on the extrapolative inferences considered by Hume. The consequence then is that it is not so important, at least for science, if those inferences would lack a rational foundation.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Ok, but why should it be fought? And is dancing the best way?
Botzo@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
I just knew my philosophy degree would come in handy one day.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 7 hours ago
Idk I’m not Karl Popper it’s his idea