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Analogy and Confirmation Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Mary Hesse
Mary Hesse*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Abstract

The argument from analogy is examined from the point of view of Carnap's confirmation theory. It is argued that if inductive arguments are to be applicable to the real world, they must contain elementary analogical inferences. Carnap's system as originally developed (the λ-system) is not strong enough to take account of analogical arguments, but it is shown that the new system, which he has announced but not published in detail (the η-system), is capable of satisfying the conditions of inductive analogy. Finally it is shown that an elementary analysis of analogical inference yields postulates of the η-system with a minimum of arbitrary assumptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 1964 , pp. 319 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

1 See especially L. Apostel: “Towards the Formal Study of Models in the Non-Formal Sciences,” in The Concept and Role of the Model in Mathematics and Natural and Social Sciences (ed. H. Freudenthal), Dordrecht, 1961; R. B. Braithwaite: “Models in the Empirical Sciences” in Proc. Congress of the International Union for the Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (ed. P. Suppes et al.), Stanford, 1960; E. Nagel: The Structure of Science, Ch. VI; and the present author's Models and Analogies in Science, London: Sheed & Ward, 1963.

2 C. D. Broad: “Problematic Induction”, Proc. Aris. Soc., 28, 1927-8, 1; J. M. Keynes: A Treatise on Probability, London, 1921, Ch. XVIII, XIX; G. H. von Wright: The Logical Problem of Induction, Helsingfors, 1941, p. 134.

3 The new system is outlined in R. Carnap & W. Stegmüller: Induktive Logik und Wahrscheinlichkeit, Vienna, 1959, Appendix B (abbreviated ILW). References to Carnap's previous system will be to The Logical Foundations of Probability, Chicago, 1950 (abbreviated LFP), and The Continuum of Inductive Methods, Chicago, 1952 (abbreviated CIM).

4 By the present author in Models and Analogies in Science, p. 121, and in more detail by Peter Achinstein: “Variety and Analogy in Confirmation Theory”, Phil. Sci. 30, 1963, p. 216.

5 Achinstein's theorem is proved in Appendix I to his paper.

6 Note 1.

7 That this is the case is surmised but not proved by Carnap in his reply to Achinstein's paper Phil. Sci. 30, 1963, p. 225).