A Study On Reichenbach’s Induction Thought

The problem of induction is the problem of the rationality of inductive reasoning, in otherwords, it is valid or not from individual to general reasoning. Since Hume questioned therationality of induction, many philosophers and logicians have tried to solve this problem,and Reichenbach′s induction thought had been to answer this problem. Living in thetwentieth century, Reichenbach was impacted by the science thought of that era, and then hedeveloped a theory of inductive probability logic on the basis of his inheriting the thoughts ofBayesian, John Maynard Keynes and Von Mises.Reichenbach tried to prove the rationality of inductive reasoning by means of probabilitytheory and replace complete certainty with incomplete certainty. He established a probabilitycalculus and the frequency interpretation of the model, then dealt with inductive reasoning byusing the frequency interpretation. Reichenbach thought inductive reasoning is to find asequence of events, and the frequency of these events is convergent towards a limitation.Under the condition that people can not confirm the limitation that whether it exists,Reichenbach thought the simple enumeration method of gradual identification is the only wayto achieve the goal. In his view, though inductive reasoning can not guarantee the absolutecorrectness of the conclusions, it can provide us the most appropriate assumptions about thefuture. By this way, Reichenbach defended the rationality of inductive reasoning from apragmatic point of view.Reichenbach′s theory of induction logic extends the scope of application of probabilitytheory. Although pragmatic approach failed to solve “the problem of induction”, the approachhe portrayed inductive reasoning by probability language created a new approach to solve theproblem of induction. Although the theory of the frequency interpretation encountered manydifficulties in the application, his induction thought has a great affect on the development ofartificial intelligence, the risk in decision-making, the acquisition of scientific knowledge andthe judgments of events in daily life.