Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
1 Note that the practical efficacy of the method of the ‘Fair Weather Optimists’ lies precisely in its ‘anti-inductivist’ feature of being willing to regard every new rainy day as the first of two, i.e. of a ‘pair’, when as a matter of fact ‘pairs’ are the exception rather than the rule.
2 In technical jargon the point may be put as follows: The (relative frequency of) predictive success in applying an inductive method or a prediction-rule need not necessarily correlate positively with the (actual or even the expected) utility arising from adoption of this procedure as a principle of action.