Inquirement Into Rudolf Carnap's Theory Of Probability Confirmation

The background and reasons of Rudolf Carnap's theory of confirmation analyzed from three aspects in the first part of the paper. The problem of induction and principal of verifiability leads to Carnap's theory directly. At the 18th century,the philosophy Hume doubted general statement can induct from purticular statement,which called "Hume problem "and "induction problem" . This problem negated the rationality of science.Logical empirist agreed the reason of science and producted systematical theory of verifiability ,but the principal of verifiability suffered from criticism because it negated the verifiability of science propsition. Logical empirist had to lower the criterion of the principal of verifiability. At this time, Carnap suggested "confirmation" principal. He studied the numeral confirmation to answer the "Hume problem" and seached the logical basis of science. Carnap gained inspiration from the development of probability logic,so he made "probability" a basis of his inductive theory. The method of mathematics logic also had great influence on Camap.He was good at mathematics and symbol logic,so he could study the problem of confirmation with the tool of the methods of mathematical logic and probability logic to construct inductive logical system of the theory of probability confirmation.Carnap's inductive logical system of the theory of probability confirmation is introduced in the second part of paper.Firstly, some basical and important concepts are explained such as confirmation and degree of confirmation,probability1 and probability2. In Carnap's opinion, the difference between verifiability and confirmation is that verifiability means the hypothesis is finally proved to be true,but confirmation means it be true nowerdays. Then Carnap analyzed the distinction and relationship between probabilityi and probability2. In order to made his theory of confirmation have exact rules, he constructed a first-order logical language system and gave the definitions and theorems to some important conceptssuch as state description, structure desciption and the range of state description etc. In the given language system, some functions such as m-function,C-function etc.collected with the theory of inductive confirmation are introduced, m-function is the basis of C-function.The logical and methodological significance of Carnap's inductive logical system of the theory of probability confirmation is accounted in the third part of paper. Carnap's theory has important value. Firstly, Carnap answered the famous question of inductive logic problem which is also called "Hume problem" in philosophy history in particular way.i.e, he made the format of inductive logic into reality, though his theory had some limitations and couldn't solve this problem completly.He also supplied the logical basis to science's reason. Secondly, Carnap anlalyzed the distinction and similarity between inductive logic and deductive logic whice made people can clearly know the worth of inductive logic which is important the same with deductive logic.Thirdly, he advanced the development of modern inductive logics in the way of format and mumeral.The defects and mendings of Carnap's logical system of the theory of probability confirmation are accounted in the forth part of paper. Firstly, Carnap's theory is based on priori, so his theory does not give exact number to the degree of confirmation,which leaded the study of induction collected with people's cognitive ability. Secondly, Carnap studied the numeral confirmation,he gave attentions on the mumber of evidence,but neglected the effectiveness of evidence,which leaded to the study of induction collected with the science facts . Thirdly, his theory can't solve the problem that general proposition's degree of confirmation is zero because his theory is restricted in the range of language. These defects leaded to the study methods of inductive logics turning to non-probability from probability, from global to local after the 1950s.