Reichenbach, induction, and discovery
pp. 123-149
in: Wolfgang Spohn (ed), Erkenntnis orientated, Berlin, Springer, 1991Abstract
Reichenbach's pragmatic vindication of induction has almost no philosophical following today. It is taken to epitomize a narrow, unrealistic, and rigid approach to the understanding of scientific inference. But Reichenbach's theory of induction has inspired a more formidable approach to the study of inductive inference that is now known as learning theory. Learning theory is a fusion of Reichenbach's reliabilist standards for inductive success with the techniques and results of logic and the theory of computation. So far, learning theoretic results have not drawn much attention from the philosophy of science, despite the fact that they bear directly upon standard questions and puzzles surrounding inductive method.
