For more than a century now the Chinese world, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, has been struggling with adaptation to modernity. According to Chen Guying, the main cause of difficulties lies with the dominance of Confucianism in China and with the neglect of another strand of culture: Daoism. In 1992, this conviction led him to found a new journal, Daojia wenhua yanjiu, hoping to encourage research and discussion on the rich and variegated aspects of Daoism, ranging from religion and (...) philosophy to art, science, medicine, technology, and similar topics. (shrink)

WE must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that carries it out demonstrative science.

Conditions are stated under which the "argument by analogy" is consistent with the principle of inverse probability. It is contended that the argument by analogy, in conjunction with a crucial test, has a legitimate place in scientific logic. As an example the astrophysical problem of solar granulation is discussed in detail and other examples are mentioned more briefly.

In section I the notions of logical and inductive probability will be discussed as well as two explicanda, viz. degree of confirmation, the base for inductive probability, and degree of evidential support, Popper's favourite explicandum. In section II it will be argued that Popper's paradox of ideal evidence is no paradox at all; however, it will also be shown that Popper's way out has its own merits.

The argument from analogy is examined from the point of view of Carnap's confirmation theory. It is argued that if inductive arguments are to be applicable to the real world, they must contain elementary analogical inferences. Carnap's system as originally developed (theλ -system) is not strong enough to take account of analogical arguments, but it is shown that the new system, which he has announced but not published in detail (theη -system), is capable of satisfying the conditions of inductive analogy. (...) Finally it is shown that an elementary analysis of analogical inference yields postulates of the η -system with a minimum of arbitrary assumptions. (shrink)