There are two important traditions in the philosophy of induction. According to one tradition, which has dominated for the last couple of centuries, inductive arguments are warranted by rules. Bayesianism is the most popular view within this tradition. Rules of induction provide functional accounts of inductive support, but no rule is universal; hence, no rule is by itself an accurate model of inductive support. According to another tradition, inductive arguments are not warranted by rules but by matters of fact. Norton’s (...) material theory of induction (MTI) is an influential view within this tradition. Norton’s MTI fails to provide an account of inductive support, but it provides a good account of inductive warrant that can help us define the domain of validity of each rule of induction. Despite their limitations, both approaches to induction are illuminating important aspects of how relations of inductive support work. In this article I present a hybrid theory of induction (HTI), in which I acknowledge and articulate the role of both rules and matters of fact in our understanding of inductive support. According to the HTI, rules of induction accurately describe relations of inductive support when they are warranted, and a rule of induction is warranted if the right facts about the matter of the induction obtain. Crucially, the HTI allows us to address the main challenges that each tradition faces while retaining their strengths, thus obtaining a functional and accurate account of inductive support. The HTI also provides a useful general framework to examine and understand induction, to make sense of how different rules of induction can coexist and to tackle some problems in epistemology. Moreover, the HTI allows us to clarify and resolve some current debates on induction, like the apparent divide between Norton and rule-based theorists. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 864-886, December 2021.

The dynamic nature of physics cannot be captured through an exclusive focus on the static mathematical formulations of physical theories. Instead, we can more fruitfully think of physics as a set of distinctively social, cognitive, and theoretical/methodological practices. An emphasis on practice has been one of the most notable aspects of the recent “naturalistic turn” in general philosophy of science, in no small part due to the arguments of many feminist philosophers of science. A major project of feminist philosophy of (...) physics has been to shine a critical light on the social and cognitive practices in physics, and how those ultimately influence other aspects of the science. Here we argue that traditional philosophy of physics has focused exclusively on the theoretical/methodological practices of physics, and that feminist philosophy of physics seeks to broaden the focus to include the social and cognitive practices as well. (shrink)

John D. Norton defends an empiricist epistemology of thought experiments, the central thesis of which is that thought experiments are nothing more than arguments. Philosophers have attempted to provide counterexamples to this claim, but they haven’t convinced Norton. I will point out a more fundamental reason for reformulation that criticizes Norton’s claim that a thought experiment is a good one when its underlying logical form possesses certain desirable properties. I argue that by Norton’s empiricist standards, no thought experiment is ever (...) justified in any deep sense due to the properties of its logical form. Instead, empiricists should consider again the merits of evaluating thought experiments more like laboratory experiments, and less like arguments. (shrink)

We propose a new account of calibration according to which calibrating a technique shows that the technique does what it is supposed to do. To motivate our account, we examine an early twentieth-century debate about chlorophyll chemistry and Mikhail Tswett’s use of chromatographic adsorption analysis to study it. We argue that Tswett’s experiments established that his technique was reliable in the special case of chlorophyll without relying on either a theory or a standard calibration experiment. We suggest that Tswett broke (...) the experimenters’ regress by appealing to material facts in the common ground for chemists at the time. (shrink)