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(1990) Synthese 85 (1).
This paper begins with a rigorous critique of David Stove's recent bookThe Rationality of Induction. In it, Stove produced four different proofs to refute Hume's sceptical thesis about induction. I show that Stove's attempts to vindicate induction are unsuccessful. Three of his proofs refute theses that are not the sceptical thesis about induction at all. Stove's fourth proof, which uses the sampling principle to justify one particular inductive inference, makes crucial use of an unstated assumption regarding randomness. Once this assumption is made explicit, Hume's thesis once more survives.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/BF00873196
Full citation:
Indurkhya, B. (1990). Some remarks on the rationality of induction. Synthese 85 (1), pp. 95-114.
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