Abstract

The article is concerned with the practicalist attempt to "solve" the problem of induction. The point of departure is the concept of counter-induction introduced by Max Black and his refutation of practicalism. If we are not to beg the question whether induction yields knowledge of the future, Max Black asserts, there is a symmetry between induction and counter-induction as methods. The main point of the article is to show that this assertion is false, at least when induction and counter-induction are compared as regards their relations to hypothetico-deductive method. As regards these relations, there is a striking asymmetry. The author tries to establish the following conclusion: A theory can agree with all future data and yet be false because it does not agree with all past data. If we are not to be in a position where our theories are necessarily falsified either by past or future data, we must use induction rather than counter-induction