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FOOL ME ONCE: CAN INDIFFERENCE VINDICATE INDUCTION?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2017

Abstract

Roger White (2015) sketches an ingenious new solution to the problem of induction. He argues from the principle of indifference for the conclusion that the world is more likely to be induction-friendly than induction-unfriendly. But there is reason to be skeptical about the proposed indifference-based vindication of induction. It can be shown that, in the crucial test cases White concentrates on, the assumption of indifference renders induction no more accurate than random guessing. After discussing this result, the paper explains why the indifference-based argument seemed so compelling, despite ultimately being unsound.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

REFERENCES

Schurz, G. Ms. ‘No Free Lunch Theorem, Inductive Skepticism, and the Optimality of Meta-Induction.’Google Scholar
White, R. 2015. ‘The Problem of the Problem of Induction.’ Episteme, 12(2): 275–90.Google Scholar
Wolpert, D. 1996. ‘The Lack of A Priori Distinctions between Learning Algorithms.’ Neural Computation, 8: 1341–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar