For Universal Rules, Against Induction

Abstract

This essay criticizes John Norton's 2010 defense of the thesis that “all induction is local.” Norton's local inductions are bound, if cogent, to involve general principles, and the need to accredit these general principles threatens to lead to all the usual problems associated with the ‘problem of induction’. Norton, in fact, recognizes this threat, but his responses are inadequate. The right response involves not induction but a sophisticated version of hypothetico-deduction. Norton's secondary thesis—that if there is a general account of cogent scientific reasoning, then it is certainly not the one supported by personalist Bayesians—is also criticized.