INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION IN THE SCIENCES VIENNA CIRCLE INSTITUTE YEARBOOK [2003] 11 VIENNA CIRCLE INSTITUTE YEARBOOK [2003] 11 Institut 'Wiener Kreis' Society for the Advancement of the Scientific World Conception Series-Editor: Friedrich Stadler University of Vienna, Austria and Director, Institut 'Wiener Kreis' Advisory Editorial Board: Honorary Consulting Editors: Rudolf Haller, University of Graz, Austria, Coordinator Kurt E. Baier Martin Carrier, University of Bielefeld, Germany Francesco Barone ·1· Nancy Cartwright, London School of Economics, UK C.G. Hempel i' Robert S. Cohen, Boston University, USA Stephan Korner i' Wilhelm K. Essler, University of Frankfurt/M., Germany Saul A. Kripke Kurt Rudolf Fischer, University of Vienna, Austria Henk Mulder t Michael Friedman, Stanford University, USA Arne Naess Maria Carla Galavotti, University of Bologna, Italy Paul Neurath j" Peter Galison, Harvard University, USA Willard Van Orman Quine ·1· Adolf GrUnbaum, University of Pittsburgh, USA Marx W. Wartofsky t Rainer Hegselmann, University of Bayreuth, Germany Michael Heidelberger, University ofTiibingen, Germany Review Editor: Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University, USA Michael Stiiltzner, University of Bielefeld, Germany Gerald Holton, Harvard University, USA Don Howard, University of Notre Dame, USA Editorial Work/Layout/Production: Allan S. Janik, University of lnnsbruck, Austria Laurence C. Fauth Richard Jeffrey, Princeton University, USA Hartwig Jobst Andreas Kamiah, University of Osnabriick, Germany Robert Kaller Eckehart Kohler, University of Vienna, Austria Camilla R. Nielsen Anne J. Kox, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Elisabeth Leinfellner, University of Vienna, Austria Werner Leinfellner, Technical University of Vienna, Austria James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, USA Editorial Address: Brian McGuinness, University of Siena, Italy Institut 'Wiener Kreis' Kevin Mulligan, Universite de Geneve, Switzerland Museumstrasse 5/2/19, A-1070 Wien, Austria Elisabeth Nemeth, University of Vienna, Austria Tel.: +431/5261005 (international) Julian Nida-RUmelin, University o{Gottingen, Germany or 01/5261005 (national) Helga Nowotny, ETH Ziirich, Switzerland Fax.: +431/5248859 (international) Erhard Oeser, University of Vienna, Austria or 01/5248859 (national) Joelle Proust, Ecole Polyteclmique CREA Paris, France email: [email protected] Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia, CDN homepage: http://univie.ac.at!ivc/ Peter Schuster, University of Vienna, Austria Jan Sebestfk, CNRS Paris, France Karl Sigmund, University of Vienna, Austria Hans Sluga, University of Calijomia at Berkeley, USA Elliott Sober. Stanford University, USA Antonia Soulez, Universite de Paris 8, France Wolfgang Spohn, University of Konstanz, Germany Christian Thiel, University of Erlangen, Germany Walter Thirring, University of Vienna, Austria Thomas E. Uebel, University of Manchester, UK Georg Winckler, University of Vienna, Austria Ruth Wodak, University of Vienna, Austria Jan Woler\ski, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Anton Zeilinger, University of Vienna, Austria The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume. INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION IN THE SCIENCES Edited by FRIEDRICH STADLER University of Vienna, and Institute Vienna Circle, Austria Springer Science+Business Media, B.V. A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library ofCongress. ISBN 978-90-481-6555-1 ISBN 978-1-4020-2196-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-2196-1 Series ISSN 0929-6328 Printed on acid-free paper • Gedruckt mit Fărderung der European Science Foundation Printed with financial support of the European Science Foundation The European Science Poundation (ESF) acts as a catalyst for the development of science by bringing together leading scientists and funding agencies to debate, plan and implement pau-European scientific and science policy initiatives. ESF is tbe European association of 76 major national funding agencies devoted to scientific research in 29 countries. It represents ali scientific disciplines: physical and engineering sciences, life and environmental sciences, medical sciences, humanities and social sciences. The Foundation assists its Member Organisations in two main ways. It brings scientists togetber in its EUROCORES (ESF Collaborative Research Programmes), Scientific Forward Looks, Programmes, Networks. Exploratory Workshops and European Research Conferences to work on topics of common concern including Research Jnfrastroctures. It also conducts tbe joint studies of issues of strategic importance in European science policy. It rnaintains clase relations witb otber scientific institutions within and outside Europe. By its activities, the ESF adds value by cooperation and coordination across national frontiers and endeavours, offers expert scientific advice on strategic issues, and provides the European forum for science. Gedruckt mit Forderung des bsterreichischen Bundesministeriums fiir Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur Printed with financial support of the Austrian Ministry for Education, Science and Cui ture In cooperation with the University of Vienna, Center for Interdisciplinary Research 1 Zentrumfilr iiberfakultăre Forschung AII Rights Reserved © 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2004. Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 2004 No part ofthis work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilm ing, recording or otherwise, without written permis sion from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose ofbeing entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser ofthe work. EDITORIAL The articles in the general part of this Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook "Induction and Deduction in the Sciences" document the invited contributions to the 2"d international workshop of the European Science Foundation's (ESF) Scientific Network on "Historical and Contemporary Perspectives of Philosophy of Science in Europe". This event, which was organised by the Vienna Circle Institute, took place July 7-9, 2002 at the University of Vienna. The first work shop of this network on main issues, methods and results in history and philoso phy of science in an European context was held at the Bertinoro Conference Centre of the University of Bologna from September 30 to October 2, 200 I. The network is run by a coordinating committee consisting of Maria Carla Galavotti (Bologna, Italy) who has served as chairperson, Aristides Baltas (Athens, Greece), Donald Gillies (London, UK), Theo Kuipers (Groningen, The Nether lands), Ilkka Niiniluoto (Helsinki, Finland), Michel Paty (Paris, France), Miklos Redei (Budapest, Hungary), Friedrich Stadler (Vienna, Austria), and Gereon Wolters (Konstanz, Germany). The proceedings of the first workshop have been published in a volume under the title Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences, edited by Maria Carla Galavotti with Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1 The third workshop on "Laws and Models in Science" took place at King's College London, September 7-9, 2003 and addressed problems of the structure of science, in particular the role played by theories, laws and models in several sci entific fields and their different applications. Its proceedings will be published 2004 in a special volume of the "King's College Publications", edited by Donald Gillies. The general aim of the ESF network from 2000 to 2003 was to identify the main features of philosophy of science in Europe today, in a spirit of continuity with a tradition that originated in Logical Empiricism (Vienna Circle and Berlin Group) in Central Europe in the first decades of the last century. Since the heyday of sci entific philosophy new archival material and research accompanied by extensive transatlantic exchanges has brought forth new perspectives and results in this in terdisciplinary field. These contributions have contributed to a clarification and better understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge from a historical and philosophical point of view? 1 Maria Carla Galavotti (ed.), Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences. Kluwer: Dordrecht-Boston-London 2003. (=Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol.232). 2 Cf. the list of the publications of the Vienna Circle Institute: http://www.univie.ac.at/ivc/ VI EDITORIAL The articles in this volume deal with the main inferential methods that can be applied to different kinds of experimental evidence. These contributions aim at removing the traditional opposition between inductivists and deductivists (e.g., by focusing on abduction) in order to explore the different methods of explana tion and justification in the formal, natural and social sciences in different con texts and with different objectives. This volume also includes critical comments made by leading scholars on methods of the sciences, especially on induction, deduction, abduction, laws, probability and explanation, ranging from logic, mathematics, natural to the so cial sciences. They present a highly topical pluralist re-evaluation of methodo logical and foundational procedures and reasoning, e.g. focusing on Bayesianism and Artificial Intelligence. The workshop in Vienna was funded by the ESF and the organisers, the Vienna Circle Institute together with the University of Vienna, Center for Interdiscipli nary Research and Department of Contemporary History. The conference and publication were made possible by the support of the editorial team of Vienna Circle Institute with Gloria Sultano, Daria Mascha, Robert Kaller, Laurence C. Fauth, Camilla R. Nielsen and Hartwig Jobst, all of whom I would like to thank for their professional cooperation. The publication of each Yearbook is sup ported by the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, for which we are grateful as well. We have retained the format of our series in the ll th volume of the Vienna Circle Yearbook with the announcement of our activities, documentation and a review section presenting recent publications on logical empiricism and related fields, for which I would like to thank our review editor Michael Stoltzner. We have also included an obituary on Richard Jeffrey, one of the most important and distinguished 20th century philosophers of science who supported IVC from the beginning as a member of the scientific board and contributor to its confer ences. We will remember his life and extraordinary work in the tradition of Logical Empiricism in the spirit of his open-minded and creative scholarship. Vienna, October 2003 Friedrich Stadler (University of Vienna, and Vienna Circle Institute) TABLE OF CONTENTS A. INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION IN THE SCIENCES I. FRIEDRICH STADLER: Induction and Deduction in the Philosophy of Science: a Critical Account since the Methodenstreit ................................................... 1 MALACHI HACOHEN: Historicizing Deduction: Scientific Method, Critical Debate, and the Historian ............................................................................. 17 II. THEO A.F. KUIPERS: Inference to the Best Theory, rather than Inference to the Best Explanation - Kinds of Abduction and Induction ....................... 25 ADAM GROBLER: The Significance of Explanatory Considerations ................... 53 III. lLKKA NIINILUOTO: Truth-seeking by Abduction ............................................... 57 STATHIS PSILLOS: Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism .............. 83 IV. JOKE MEHEUS: Adaptive Logics and the Integration of Induction and Deduction ..................................................................................................... 93 MATTI SINTONEN: Argument, Inference and Reasoning-Integrating Induction and Deduction ............................................................................ 121 v. WOLFGANG SPOHN: Laws are Persistent Inductive Schemes ............................ 135 ECKEHART KOHLER: Physical Intuition as Inductive Support .......................... 151 VIII VI. PETER CLARK: Frege, Neo-Logicism and Applied Mathematics ...................... 169 MICHEL PATY: Remarks About a "General Science of Reasoning" ................. 185 JEAN-JACQUES SZCZECINIARZ: Two Questions About the Revival of Frege's Programme ..................................................................................... 195 VII. DONALD GILLIES: Handling Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, and the Bayesian Controversy ........................................................................... 199 STEPHAN HARTMANN: Artificial Intelligence and Its Methodological Implications ................................................................................................ 217 VIII. HANS ROTT: Supplying Planks for Neurath's Boat: Can Economists Meet the Demands of the Dynamics of Scientific Theories? ............................... 225 NILS-ERIC SAHLIN: Informational Economy and Creativity ............................. 247 IX. I. GRATTAN-GUINNESS: The Place of the Notion of Corroboration in Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science ......................................................... 251 LADISLA v KVASZ: How can a Falsified Theory Remain Corroborated? .......... 263 X. KARL MILFORD: Inductivism in 19th Century German Economics ................... 273 DAVID MILLER: The Uniformity of Nature: What Purpose does it Serve? ....... 293 IX B. GENERAL PART REPORT- DOCUMENTATION SYBILLA NIKOLOW: Planning, Democratization and Popularization with ISOTYPE, ca. 1945: a Study of Otto Neurath's Pictorial Statistics with the Example of Bilston, England ........................................................ 299 REVIEWS Paolo Parrini, Wesley C. Salmon & Merrilee H. Salmon (eds.), Logical Empiricism: Historical & Contemporary Perspectives. Pittsburgh: Uni versity of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. (Christopher Pincock) ................................................................................. 331 C. Wayne Mayhall, On Logical Positivism, Wadsworth Philosophical Topics, Belmont, 2003. (Matthias Neuber) ....................................................................................... 335 C. Wayne Mayhall, On Carnap, Wadsworth Philosopher Series, Wadsworth I Thomson Learning, Belmont USA, 2002. (Christian Dambock) .................................................................................. 338 Jean-Pierre Cometti and Kevin Mulligan, La philosophie autrichienne de a Balzano Musil. Histojre et actualite, Paris: J. Vrin, 2001. (Anastasios Brenner) .................................................................................. 339 Steven Beller (ed.), Rethinking Vienna 1900. Berghahn Books, New York Oxford 200 1. (Kurt Rudolf Fischer) ................................................................................. 342 Eckart Menzler-Trott, Gentzens Problem. Mathematische Logik im national sozialistischen Deutschland, Birkhauser: Basel-Boston-Berlin 2001. (Matthias Wille) .......................................................................................... 343