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A Note on Prediction and Deduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John Canfield  and
Keith Lehrer
John Canfield
Affiliation:
Brown University — Wayne State University
Keith Lehrer
Affiliation:
Brown University — Wayne State University
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Abstract

This paper argues against the deductive reconstruction of scientific prediction, that is, against the view that in prediction the predicted event follows deductively from the laws and initial conditions that are the basis of the prediction. The major argument of the paper is intended to show that the deductive reconstruction is an inaccurate reconstruction of actual scientific procedure. Our reason for maintaining that it is inaccurate is that if the deductive reconstruction were an accurate reconstruction, then scientific prediction would be impossible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 1961 , pp. 204 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1961

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References

1 Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation.” Philosophy of Science, 15: 135-175 (1948). See also, Carl G. Hempel, “The Theoretician's Dilemma,” pp. 37-41. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, V. II. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1958.

2 Karl Popper, Logik der Forschung, section 12. Wien, J. Springer, 1935. Translated as The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York, Basic Books, 1959.

3 Karl Popper, loc. cit., pp., 59-60.

4 Thus we leave undecided the question of whether the law statement is to be interpreted as an extensional statement, a nomological statement or a probability statement.

5 This conclusion is supported by, among other, Michael Scriven: “Definitions, Explanations, and Theories.” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, V. II., pp. 193-4. Scriven's arguments, however, are different from those offered above.

6 Compare, Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Cambridge, Harvard Univerity Press, 1955, p. 23.

7 For a defense of this position, see Hans Reichenbach, The Theory of Probability, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1949, pp., 434-442.