{"agent_id":"popper","agent_name":"Karl Popper","slug":"the-problem-of-induction","label":"The problem of induction: did Hume's problem need to be solved, or is it dissolved?","topic":"The problem of induction","question":"Did Hume's problem need to be solved, or is it dissolved?","position":"Hume's problem of induction is dissolved, not solved. Science does not use induction; therefore Hume's question of how induction could be justified does not arise. We start with bold conjectures (which need not be derived from observation at all), deduce testable consequences, and submit those consequences to severe tests. Refutation, when it occurs, is deductive; the survival of a theory under severe testing is corroboration, which is not a measure of probability and not a smuggled-in induction. The choice between competing conjectures is settled by which has survived more severe tests with higher content (verisimilitude), not by which is more probable on the evidence.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Hume's problem of induction is dissolved, not solved.","n":[1]},{"t":"Science does not use induction; therefore Hume's question of how induction could be justified does not arise.","n":[2]},{"t":"We start with bold conjectures (which need not be derived from observation at all), deduce testable consequences, and submit those consequences to severe tests.","n":[]},{"t":"Refutation, when it occurs, is deductive; the survival of a theory under severe testing is corroboration, which is not a measure of probability and not a smuggled-in induction.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The choice between competing conjectures is settled by which has survived more severe tests with higher content (verisimilitude), not by which is more probable on the evidence.","n":[3]}]],"texts":"The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Chapter 1 (the rejection of induction); Objective Knowledge (1972), Chapter 1 ('Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction'); Conjectures and Refutations, especially the title essay and 'Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge'; Realism and the Aim of Science (Postscript I, 1983). Reception: Wesley Salmon's various responses defending the residual induction problem; Hilary Putnam's responses; Colin Howson, Hume's Problem (2000); the Bayesian tradition (Howson and Urbach) on probabilistic confirmation.","works":["The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Chapter 1 (the rejection of induction)","Objective Knowledge (1972), Chapter 1 ('Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction')","Conjectures and Refutations, especially the title essay and 'Truth, Rationality, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge'","Realism and the Aim of Science (Postscript I, 1983)"],"reception":"Wesley Salmon's various responses defending the residual induction problem; Hilary Putnam's responses; Colin Howson, Hume's Problem (2000); the Bayesian tradition (Howson and Urbach) on probabilistic confirmation.","status":"The signature methodological claim and the most contested. Wesley Salmon argued throughout his career that even after Hume is dissolved, the residual problem of theory-choice requires something inductive; Hilary Putnam pressed the same line. Colin Howson (Hume's Problem, 2000) develops a Bayesian alternative. The Bayesian tradition broadly treats Popper's corroboration as a notational variant of likelihood- based confirmation. Popperians (Watkins, Miller, Notturno) defend the deductivist dissolution.","era":"1902-1994","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Conjectures and Refutations","page":"p. 56","canonical":"","quote":"Hume showed that it is not possible to infer a theory from observation statements; but this does not affect the possibility of refuting a theory by observation statements. The full appreciation of this possibility makes the relation between theories and observations perfectly clear. This solves the problem of the alleged clash between the principles (*a*), (*b*), and (*c*), and with it Hume's problem of induction.","label":"Conjectures and Refutations, p. 56"},{"n":2,"work":"Replies to My Critics","page":"pp. 55–56","canonical":"","quote":"I agree with Hume's opinion that induction is invalid and in no sense justified. Consequently neither Hume nor I can accept the traditional formulations which uncritically ask for the justification of induction; such a request is uncritical because it is blind to the possibility that induction is invalid *in every sense,* and therefore *unjustifiable.* I disagree with Hume's opinion (the opinion incidentally of…","label":"Replies to My Critics, pp. 55–56"},{"n":3,"work":"Realism and the Aim of Science","page":"pp. 75–76","canonical":"","quote":"J. Warnock, of my L.Sc.D. in Mind 69, pp. 99-101.) In the introduction to Chapter X of L.Sc.D., I wrote, 'we should try to assess how far it (that is, a hypothesis) has been able to prove its fitness to survive by standing up to tests'.","label":"Realism and the Aim of Science, pp. 75–76"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"falsifiability-and-the-demarcation-problem","label":"Falsifiability and the demarcation problem: is the criterion defensible against Quine-Duhem holism, Kuhn's paradigms, and Lakatos's research programs?"}]}