Short Answer Questions (submit online)

1. Explain the Hypothetico-Deductive (HD) approach to confirmation.
2. What is the Paradox of the Raven?
3. What is the Duhem-Quine problem?

For Further Discussion

• Drawing conclusions from experiments. One answer to the question of how science produces knowledge is: science draws conclusions from experiments. One way to characterise the rule that guides those conclusion is by a principle of induction.
  • Enumerative induction seems to admit simple counterexamples. What are some easy examples?
  • Enumerative induction often seems to get something right. For example, when an animal or a child touches a hot object, they quickly learn that hot objects burn them, and so refrain from touching them in the future. Is this a reasonable conclusion?
  • What distinguishes the absurd uses of enumerative induction from the good cases?
  • Naïve induction seeks to improve enumerative induction by adding caveats. Can you characterise the "correct" uses of enumerative induction you described above by adding caveats to enumerative induction?
• HD Confirmation. A slightly more sophisticated approach to describing scientific knowledge is the Hypothetico-Deductive theory.
  • Why is 'Hypothetico' in the name? Why is 'Deductive' in the name?
  • How is the HD theory distinct from enumerative induction?
  • Think of the counterexamples to enumerative induction discussed above. Do these counterexamples apply to the HD method? If not, why? If so, can you think of any caveats that might be added to the HD method to make it correct?
  • Do you think the Paradox of the Raven poses a serious problem for the view, or is there some way for the HD theorist to get out of it?
  • A common addition to the HD theory is to demand that the testable prediction be a novel prediction that was not previously expected, rather than just any logical consequence. (See, e.g., this discussion from the optional reading.) How does this avoid the problems with the HD view?
  • How general is this solution? Does demanding novel predictions work for sciences like (say) archeology, or big-bang cosmology? Can you think of a preferable alternative addition to the HD theory?
• The Duhem-Quine Problem. The Duhem-Quine problem supposedly undermines all attempts to confirm a theory by evidence.
  • Duhem originally suggested that this was only a problem for physics. Quine later suggested that the problem holds for all sciences. Why would Duhem suggest that this only a problem for physics? Who do you think is correct, Duhem or Quine?
  • 1st Premise of Duhem-Quine: "Observed evidence only confirms a theory if it is obtained without presuming any other theoretical hypothesis." Is this plausible? Why or why not?
  • 2nd Premise of Duhem-Quine: "Observed evidence can only be obtained by presuming at least one hypothesis." Is that plausible? Why or why not?
  • How (if at all) does the Duhem-Quine problem undermine the HD method of confirmation? Can you think of any modification to the HD method that would make it less susceptable to this problem?
• Hume's Problem is considered by some to be among the biggest open problems in the philosophy of science, which resists resolution even after hundreds of years. Do you agree with this? Or can we simply dismiss Hume's Problem? Why or why not?