Pessimistic inductions are a family of arguments with the following structure. First, they identify some epistemologically contentious domain. Second, they identify an epistemically negative property that past attempts to theorize about the domain would have if each of them were compared to our contemporary efforts. Third, they cite this historical pattern as a track record that bears inductively on our contemporary efforts to construct and identify accurate theories. Fourth, they perform an inductive inference to conclude that our contemporary situation probably has that negative property too. Finally, they conclude that we should retract our confidence in contemporary theories due to this looming background statistic. This conclusion is supposed to follow even though current first-order evidence favors our current theories. After all, every predecessor in the track record was in its day supported by the best evidence then available and yet has since been discarded. Pessimistic inductions emphasize a simple point: any pronouncement about the epistemic status of current theories must take their own track records into account.
Chapter 1 discusses the nature and ubiquity of pessimistic inductions. They remain some of the most widely cited challenges to scientific realism, with a pedigree that goes back to the 1500s. We find them in Montaigne, Hume, Pareto, and even in Jonathan Swift’s classic tale, Gulliver’s Travels. They have been used against descriptive theories of reference, physicalist and dualist theories of mind, the legitimacy of folk concepts, and even metaphysics more generally. One needn’t be a philosopher of science to have a stake in the fate of pessimistic inductions.
Chapter 2 identifies a method known as “epistemological judo” that is indispensable for constructing these inductions. This is a method of historical comparison that cites chronologically later members of the same statistical population to deduce that earlier members exemplify the pessimist’s desired negative feature. I show that judo is irrational, since it satisfies the conditions for a no-lose investigation: a process that supposedly can justify a proposition but has no possibility of undermining it. Such investigations are absurd. Yet many pessimistic inductions require them. The result is a reductio against many pessimistic inductions in the literature. As a reductio, however, it doesn’t positively diagnose the precise origin of the absurdity. The next three chapters take on that task.
Chapter 3 diagnoses the Classical Pessimistic Induction. According to that induction, past empirically successful theories have typically been radically false by current lights; current theories aren’t relevantly different; so, they’re probably radically false too. I show that this argument’s own inferential structure violates three principles of evidence:
· Hypotheses can’t be disconfirmed by their own successful predictions.
· We shouldn’t cite correlations that disappear in light of known underlying factors.
· Inductions are legitimate only if their samples are random.
By violating those principles, the Classical Pessimistic Induction fabricates evidential significance and then treats the counterfeit as if it confers justification. That positively explains why this version (and its use of judo) is irrational.
Chapter 4 discusses an influential argument by Kyle Stanford called the New Pessimistic Induction: past scientists have typically been unimaginative—they routinely fail to conceive of serious theoretical alternatives that are at least as well supported by the phenomena as the ones scientists actually endorse; current scientists aren’t relevantly different; so, they’ve probably failed to imagine serious alternatives too. I present a dilemma against Stanford’s version based on different ways it can use judo. One horn implies that the induction violates the first principle above. The other horn implies that the induction violates the second principle. That enables me to successfully extend the previous chapter’s positive explanation of absurdity to Stanford’s induction.
Chapter 5 diagnoses the most recent version by Gregory Frost-Arnold—the Misleading Evidence Induction. It argues that past evidence has typically been misleading; that current evidence isn’t relevantly different; and that therefore our current evidence is probably misleading too. I survey analyses of misleading evidence and argue that however we construe the Misleading Evidence Induction, each interpretation violates at least one of the principles of evidence above. This completes my unified diagnosis of what enables no-lose investigations in pessimistic inductions.
I conclude that pessimistic inductions against scientific realism all fail for a priori reasons. My treatment of this issue is surprisingly novel. It is novel, in that none of the authors who have written on the topic since the 1500s have offered the treatment that I provide. It is also surprising, since I resolve the issue using only features intrinsic to pessimistic inductions along with simple principles of evidence accepted by all parties.