Philosophy 1200 Lecture 32: Lesson+32,+Problems+of+Induction
6 Aug 2020
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Problems of induction: all swans are white, all ravens are black, grue and bleen. Conclusion: we cannot justify the laws of science. We cannot rationally reason from repeated instances of which we have had experience to instances of which we have no experience. All ravens are black is confirmed by finding black ravens, but it is also confirmed by green socks. If something is a raven it is black. If something is not black it is not a raven. We can"t just check all the ravens, we have to check all the non-black things also, to confirm the inductive generalization. (goodman) Another problem is to state what properties we are talking about. Something is grue if it is green before january 1, 2050 and blue after. Something is bleen if it is blue before january 1, 2050 and green after. All sapphires are blue" and all sapphires are bleen. ".
