Against Instance Confirmation Analysis

Assignment -1

( PHI446A- Philosophy of Science ) Instructor-Dr.Philose Koshy Name-Pranshu Tripathi Roll No- 160497

Date -15 sept. 2017

QUE.1 Formulate a critical analysis of Rosenkrantz’ s counter example (Three philosophers’ hat)) against Instances Confirmation.

Foundation and Definitions (Reference: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ^ & Course material)

Nicod's criterion (N.C.)

According to the Nicod criterion of confirmation , universal generalizations of the form "All Ps are Rs," in symbols ( x)(P(x) ⇒R(x)), are confirmed by their instances "This particular object a is both P and R," or in symbols Pa ∧ Ra . An instance that is A but does not predicate B disconfirms the generalization and justifies its rejection,

E2: philosopher 3 is wearing philosopher 2’s hat.

It can be established that E1 and E2 both are instances of hypothesis H as these are of type Pa ∧ Ra. Hence ,following the method of Instances Confirmation , we can see that E1 confirms H as well as E2 confirms H.

But in our discussion we have ignored the following fact that by above two observations( made by the philosopher 1) we logically formulate that he is wearing his own hat. Thus, our hypothesis seems to be false .Hence confirmation of hypothesis by both E1 and E2 seems to be paradoxical as in reality the hypothesis H is false.

Attempted Solution to paradox;**

In our above analysis a set to observation is used to deduce the fact that hypothesis is false .But in Nicod Criterion it is clearly mentioned that an observation of the form P∧R is used for confirmation and not a set of observations.While in counter example we consider both E1and E2 as a single observation, which is definitely not the case of

But further we make an observation E3(can be logically derived, ) which happens to be a disconfirming evidence and state that the hypothesis is false relative to all background information.Thus in counter example we can say that E1 and E2 are confirming evidence as far as background information is not taken into consideration. Both of the approach(that of second and third paragraph ) seems to avert such counter example by resolving their paradoxical