This paper tries to extend Hintikka's inductive logic so that we can confirm a causally necessary statement. For this purpose, a joint system of inductive logic and logic of causal modalities is constructed. This system can offer a plausible explication of the distinction between nomic and accidental universality, as well as a good formulation of a causal law. And the transition from actuality to causal necessity is construed, in this system, as essentially probabilistic; i.e. no statements about actuality can entail (...) a necessary statement, but certain statements about actuality can single out a most probable causal law. (shrink)

It is a traditional empiricist doctrine that natural laws are universal truths. In order to overcome the obvious difficulties with this equation most empiricists qualify it by proposing to equate laws with universal truths that play a certain role, or have a certain function, within the larger scientific enterprise. This view is examined in detail and rejected; it fails to account for a variety of features that laws are acknowledged to have. An alternative view is advanced in which laws are (...) expressed by singular statements of fact describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes. (shrink)

Of two false theories, One can be, Intuitively, Closer to the truth than the other. The purpose of the article is to propose a rigorous explication of this intuitive notion.

I LOGIC IN PHILOSOPHY— PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC i. On the relation of logic to philosophy I n this book, the consequences of certain logical insights for ...

Recent interest in the problem of verisimilitude stemmed originally from Popper's desire to provide a non-inductive criterion of merit that will select between two false theories) But the problem has also been taken up by others who are not committed to Popper's anti-inductivism. Indeed Ilkka Niiniluoto has argued that the estimated degree of truthlikeness of a generalisation g which is compatible with evidence e can be equated with the inductive probability of g on e, wherever g is a constituent in (...) Hintikka's sense. It might therefore be worth while to approach the problem afresh, in order to determine quite generally whether a measure of verisimilitude is what is principally needed for the evaluation of scientific progress. I shall argue that it is not. (shrink)

The article offers a rigorous explication of the intuitive notion of verisimilitude, I.E., Of the distance of a theory from the truth. The proposal is defended against charges of material inadequacy made by popper, Niniluoto, And miller.

In a recent article [4], Fred I. Dretske has proposed a new analysis of natural laws. Dretske rejects the more or less standard view which says that laws are universal truths with a special function or status in science. As an alternative account, he suggests that laws are expressed by singular statements describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes: the statement It is a law that F's are G's3.is to be analysed as F-ness ↦ G-ness.I shall argue, however, that (...) Dretske's reasons for rejecting the standard account are not conclusive. Moreover, his own proposal seems to be either inadequate or reducible to that version of the standard account which takes laws to be nomically necessary generalizations. (shrink)