PHIL 2180 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Rudolf Carnap, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning
26 Feb 2016
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Problem of induction: question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense. David hume: scottish empiricist in the 18th century who constructed and believed in the problem of induction. Problem of confirmation: notion that evidence (data, premises) can affect the credibility of hypotheses (theories, conclusions). Logical empiricists wanted a theory of evidence or theory of confirmation that would cover the problem of confirmation. Deductive logic: well understood and less controversial kind of logic. If the premises of the argument are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true. If it has false premises, the conclusion may be false. Empiricists believed that the key idea was that science aims at formulating and testing generalisations. Inductive logic: the use of premises that seek to supply strong evidence for (not absolute proof of) the truth of the conclusion. Categorized as all good arguments that are not deductive.
