Peden, William (2021) Does the Dome Defeat the Material Theory of Induction? Erkenntnis. ISSN 0165-0106
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Abstract
According to John D. Norton's Material Theory of Induction, all inductive inferences are justified by local facts, rather than their formal features or some grand principles of nature's uniformity. Recently, Richard Dawid (2015) has offered a challenge to this theory: in an adaptation of Norton's own celebrated "Dome" thought experiment, it seems that there are certain inductions that are intuitively reasonable, but which do not have any local facts that could serve to justify them in accordance with Norton's requirements. Dawid's suggestion is that “raw induction” might have a limited but important role for such inferences.
I argue that the Material Theory can accommodate these inductions, because there are local facts concerning the combinatoric features of the induction’s target populations that can licence the inferences in an analogous way to existing examples of material induction. Since my arguments are largely independent of the details of the Dome, Norton's theory emerges as surprisingly robust against criticisms of excessive breadth.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Induction; the Dome; the Material Theory of Induction; John Norton; statistical inference | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Evidence |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. William Peden | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2021 03:50 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2021 03:50 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 19358 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Erkenntnis | ||||||
| Publisher: | Springer (Springer Science+Business Media B.V.) | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Evidence |
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| Date: | 2021 | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0165-0106 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19358 |
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