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INTER‐WORLD PROBABILITY AND THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION
Author(s) -
WRENN CHASE B.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0114.2006.00268.x
Subject(s) - a priori and a posteriori , inference , inductive reasoning , epistemology , computer science , mathematical economics , philosophy , mathematics
Laurence BonJour has recently proposed a novel and interesting approach to the problem of induction. He grants that it is contingent, and so not a priori , that our patterns of inductive inference are reliable. Nevertheless, he claims, it is necessary and a priori that those patterns are highly likely to be reliable, and that is enough to ground an a priori justification induction. This paper examines an important defect in BonJour's proposal. Once we make sense of the claim that inductive inference is “necessarily highly likely” to be reliable, we find that it is not knowable a priori after all.