Eduardo Castro

Universidade da Beira Interior

Induction and Broken Necessities

23 June 2017, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In a forthcoming paper, ‘Induction and Natural Necessities’, Stathis Psillos tries to refute the necessitarian solution to the problem of induction provided by David Armstrong. To accomplish this desideratum, he proposes that the best explanation for our observed regularities is a sort of ‘best before date’ necessity. That is, necessary connections may break down and they are not by default timeless. He develops arguments against my defence of the necessitarian solution accomplished in ‘On induction: time-limited necessity vs. timeless necessity’. Namely, he alleges that his proposal does not imply any further inductive generalization to Armstrong’s timeless necessity and it continues to establish new inferences regarding the unobserved. In this talk, I provide replies to Psillos’ proposal.