Abstract
We have seen in the light of Levis’ arguments, that necessary connections of ideas are pertinent to the interpretation of the empirically given and that our empirical knowledge of reality resulting from our conceptual interpretation of experience is not invalid on the ground that it lacks necessary connections of ideas. However, this does not necessarily show that it is therefore valid. The problem of validating empirical knowledge of reality, as Lewis deals with it in his book Mind and the World-Order, is the same problem of justifying induction and empirical generalization. It is the problem of producing and formulating the trustworthiness of induction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World-Order, 343-344.
Ibid., 310.
Ibid., 367.
Ibid., 367. (Italics mine).
We should note, of course, that in order to determine a concept or a sequence of possible experiences as true of an individual, we cannot require that sequences of possible experiences are exactly alike for every individual of the same class. What we may at most require is that those sequences of possible experiences should belong to some similarity classes, or classes of sequences of sense-experiences which are sufficiently similar to enable us to determine the given concept as true of every individual of the same class. The problem of similarity is a difficult one, but we do not have to discuss it here. Taking into consideration the notion of a similarity class, we may say that in making a statement of the form “This is an apple” we have implicitely made a generalization of the following form: “For all x like ‘this,’ if x should present some sense-experience to us, then if we should act in a certain manner, then x would present a certain other sense-experience to us.”
Ibid., 368.
Cf., Ibid., 367.
See An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, Chapter VIII.
Ibid., 185.
Cf., An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. Lewis’s definition of an explicitly analytic statement is this. “An explicitly analytic statement is an analytic statement (hence true) which asserts the logical necessity of something.” (Italics Lewis’s), 89.
In this sense, this principle should not, as Lewis supposes that it should, compare to Keynes’ Principle of Limitation of Independent Variety. The latter, as Keynes affirms, is a hypothesis supported only by inductive evidences about kinds of things in nature. For Keynes’ principle, see John M. Keynes, Treatise on Probability, 253 ff., esp. 257, where it is stated that “the amount of variety in the universe is limited in such a way that there is no one object so complex that its qualities fall into an infinite number of independent groups.” What Keynes calls independent groups are groups consisting of combinations of qualities, elements of one being irreducible to those of another.
Mind and the World-Order, 378. (Italics mine).
Ibid., 53 f, 75, 275 f. Appendix B, 407.
Cf., Chapter VIII.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1969 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cheng, CY. (1969). An “A Priori Analytical” Justification of Induction. In: Peirce’s and Lewis’s Theories of Induction. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9367-2_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9367-2_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-011-8598-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-9367-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive