Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

The Leibniz-Carnap Program for Inductive Logic Author(s): Ian Hacking Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 19, Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 7, 1971), pp. 597-610 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025192 . Accessed: 17/04/2013 22:25
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Journal of Philosophy, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE

LOGIC

597

peculiarities and limitationsof its own. Any modern theoryof knowledgemust take these various limitationsinto account. The question also arises whetherinstrumental aids will be trulyadaptive in the long run or-because of their own imperfections or misuse by man-will only hasten extinction,that inevitable culminationof any and all evolutionary processes. Rockefeller University
FLOYD RATLIFF

Inductive logic is a fragmentof classical seventeenthcenturythought.It employsa felicitousinventionof that century, namelyprobabilitytheory, but it applies it using assumptions we like to forget.They matterbecause Carnapian inductive logic could work only if somethinglike those assumptionswere right. It is proper to pair Carnap, the chiefarchitect of moderninductivelogic,withLeibniz, the first philosopherof probability. Leibniz was the first to insistthat probabilitytheorycan servein a branch of logic comparable to the theory of deduction.He was the first to tryto axiomatizeprobabilityas an inferential science.He saw how a generalizedtheory of games should be the foundationformaking any quantitativedecision in situationswhere one must act on inconclusiveevidence. Far ahead of his time he thoughtthat probabilities are relationaland he insistedthatjudgmentsof probability are relativeto thedata available.1
* To be presented in an APA symposiumon Carnap and Leibniz, December 28, 1971; Margaret D. Wilson will be co-symposiast; see this JOURNAL, this issue, pp. 610-617. 1 See L. Couturat,La Logique de Le'ibniz (Paris: Alcan, 1901, and Hildesheim: Olms, 1961); cited as Cout. below. The referencesto Leibniz on probability in ch. vi are so good that detailed bibliography is not needed here. Further matter on Leibniz on probabilityis presentedby Biermann and by Biermann and Faak; for references,see K-R Biermann's survey, " Uberblick uber die Studien von G. W. Leibniz zur Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung," Sudhoffs Archiv,LI (1967): 7985, cited as Bier. Other abbreviations: S.S. = Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Samtliche Schriftenund Briefe, Academy edition, Darmstadt and Berlin 1923, et seq. P.S. = Die Philosophischen Schriftenvon G. W. Leibniz (Berlin: Weidmann, 1875-1890, and Hildesheim: Olms, 1965). For related historical studies that indicate Leibniz's interests see my: "The Logic of Pascal's Wager," American Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming, Spring 1972), "Jacques Bernoulli's Art of Conjecturing,"British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, xx (1971): 209-229,

T-

THE LEIBNIZ-CARNAP PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE LOGIC *

HIS paperis aboutthepastand future of inductive logic.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

598

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Leibniz attracts lls here not because of his pleasant aniticipations of modern commonplacesbut because he was the firstto believe in a formallogic of inductionthatis to be advanced by constructing artificial languages of unifiedscience. We smile at the naive optimism of a Leibniz who could prophesythat on completionof his men who disagree would pick up pencils Universal Characteristic Leibniz was exclaiming,"Let us calculate!" and so end contention. but only of finding not in general speakingof provingpropositions out which are most probable ex datis (P.S. VII, pp. 200-201). Leibniz's injunction,"calculate!" is not the cryof some alien rationalism, but a cryfor inductivelogic. Or, what is perhaps closer to the truth, inductivelogic is a ratheralien rationalism. The tenetsof a programforinductivelogic are as follows.There are good nondeductivereasons for believing.Being a good reason can be representedby a relation between sentences of suitable languages.This relationcan be used to orderthe quality of reasons. the The order is susceptibleof measure,and the measure satisfies laws of probability.The measure is autonomous,and characterizes objectively what a good reason is, independently of anyone's not local, holding for particuopinions. The measureis, moreover, It lar classesof propositions. is global: any body of evidenceconfers a probabilityon any proposition whatsoever."Even probabilities and proof,so we can consequently always are capable of estimation can be expected estimatewhich event under given circumstances with the highestprobability"(P.S. vii, p. 188). Whatever we think of inductivelogic, there are two acceptable ways to apply probabilitytheory:hedgingbets,and calculatingfrequencies. Bet-hedgingtells what bets are reasonable, given that you are already committed to some bettingrates on some options. It began with Pascal's wager for adopting the pious way of life, It never and its mostmaturedescendantis perhaps decision theory. gives a unique fair rate for bettingon the truthof a proposition in the light of some inconclusiveevidence. It advises only when forexample,a some patternof betting ratesis positively incoherent, pattern in which one accepts high odds both for and against logicallyequivalentpropositions. Probabilitytheorywas firstintended not to hedge bets but to It was called the doctrineof chancesand calculate average payoffs. applied to devices so made that each of a set of alternativeoutand especially "Equipossibility Theories of Probability," ibid. (August 1971). This last paper has a bibliography for all the old works on probability mentioned in the present essay, and is cited as Equiposs.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE

LOGIC

599

comes would occur, on repeated trials,with a stable relative freor quency.One spoke of the equal ease of makingvariousoutcomes, of the proclivityof the outcomes. 'Proclivity'in the dictionaryis a synonymfor 'propensity'.The earliest doctrine of chances inof probabilvolved what today is oftencalled a "propensity theory ity." Propensitiesare supposed to be objective propertiesof parts of the world. All calculations in the doctrine of chances and in modern parametric statistics are relative to some stochastic assumptions. The doctrine of chances is objective but local, whereas bethedging is global but subjective. One can bet about almost anything and ensure that one's personal betting rates are not incoherent,but bet-hedging cannot tell which bets are sensible.In contrast,the objective doctrine of chances is local because it can be applied only to cases in which there is reason to think-perhaps because one deliberately used a random samplingdevice-that one has a chance set-upwithsome definite propensity to generatestable frequencies. Inductive logic tries to have it both ways. It claims to be both global and objective. I shall show how Leibniz's original program forwhat he called "a new kind of logic" (P.S. v, p. 448) providesa way of achieving that end, so long as one can swallow a large number of characteristically Leibnizian theories. This has some historicinterest,but my chief motive is critical. Inductive logic would constitutea plausible program only if some theorylike Leibniz's were true. Since no such theoryis true, inductive logic is not plausible at all. The new kind of logic advocated by Leibniz has plain enough beginnings.Leibniz was the only man of his time regularlyto insist thatprobability is alwaysrelativeto the evidence.Otherstudents of the doctrineof chances thoughtin termsof the "relativeease" of achievingoutcomesin repeated trials,and conditional probability seems not to be easily understoodin that context.Leibniz thought beforehe knew the doctrineof chances.His early about probability formal education was chiefly legal. A judge must assess responsibility in the light of the evidence presented.Evidence, the stock in trade of today'sinductivelogician, is primarily a legal concept. As a youngman Leibniz wroteabout measuringdegreesof proofin courtsof law. He proposed scales of proofand probability, ranging between 0, in law called nullum, what is refutedby the evidence, and 1, in law called purum,forwhat is proved.The lawyers have a

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

6oo

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

seriesof names for the degreesof partial proof.Leibniz wanted to (cf. Cout. generaltheory and so get a completely fractions substitute p. 240). had apby Huygens, textbookon the doctrineof chances, The first peared some timebefore,in 1657. Like otherbranchesof Huygens' Leibniz masteredthis only afterhe went to Paris in mathematics, 1672. He knew the Port Royal Logic beforethen.That remarkable work concludes with the intimationsof probability theoryfrom Pascal. Leibniz has some discussion of this in 1669 (S.S. vi/1, p. 281), but the calculus of probabilitieswas learned in Paris. "Although I found some basis for it before I was even a novice in mathematics,and had already printed something about it my twentiethyear, I have finallycome to see how blocked are the ways to it and how hard it would have been to open themwithout the aid of deeper mathematics"(P.S. VII, p. 522). He was well placed, associating as he did with the Roannez circle in which, according to folklore, probability theory began. What matters tailor-made to inductivelogic, is that Leibniz found a mathematics for his legal scales of proof and probability.Every other worker had to make a leap of analogy fromreckoningat games of chance to calculatingevidentialsupport. Legal scales of proof and probabilityinformedLeibniz that (1) the probabilityof propositionscan be measured between 0 and 1, (2) thisprobabilityis relativeto the evidence,and (3) thisprobability is objective. None of these three maxims need be exceptionable, although one ought to ask whetherthese "probabilities"are a calculus designed for games of chance probabilities,i.e., satisfy in which there are propensitiesto give stable frequencies.I am convinced that there are some objective measures of evidential fromlaw courtsand whichare whichcan even be extracted support, not at once additive, nonnegative,and normalizable. We cannot dwell on this question now. There is one old and notoriousway to turn scales of proof into mathematicalprobabilities: the prinreason," which Keynesrenamed ciple von Kries called "insufficient We can trace it back to Leibniz, the "principle of indifference." who in a 1678 manuscriptcalled De incertiaestimationetried to This paper (pubdeduce the laws of probabilityfrommetaphysics. assertionof the lished in full only by Bier.) is not a straightforward more than epistemology. It aims at physics principleof indifference. In thosedays the doctrineof chanceshad to reduce a problemto a "fundamental probability set" of equal chances, the chances thatbetraythemselves being equal in respectof physicalsymmetries

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE LOGIC

6oi

by stable relativefrequencies. It is well knownhow Leibniz thought that physicswas an autonomous science,yet that the fundamental laws of physics would findtheirjustification in finalcauses. Leibniz liked to use Archimedesto illustratethis: the Greek invoked sufficient reason when foundingthe science of statics.2 The doctrineof chances must have a comparable basis. A fundamentalprobability set (like two sides of a balance) is a set of cases such that thereis no cause or reason why one membershould occur more easily or frequently than another.Then, just as we can derivelaws of addition and multiplicationin statics froma liberal interpretation of the principle of sufficient reason, we can do the same for probability theory. De incerti is doing physics,but the inadequate distinctionbetweenreason and cause means it is doing epistemology too. We have a fundamentalprobabilityset of alternatives such that the causes foreach occurring are equal in "weight."Since the causes are equal in weight,we have as much reason to expect any one as any other one. Hence probabilityis degree of certainty. This does not entail the principle of indifference, for not all disjoint sets about whose memberswe are equally (un)certainneed be setsof equal probability. Only much later would Leibniz assert,as if it were an ancient truism, that in probable reasoning the axiom is "aequalibus aequalia," givingequal weightto equal suppositions(P.S. v, p. 448). Annuitiesfurnish an instructive example of his mode of thought. Leibniz assumes a uniformdeath rate over 81 years.The usually generous Couturat blasts this as an absolutelygratuitousa priori assumption,and it certainly looks like an inane application of the principleof indifference (Cout. p. 274). Worse, Leibniz utterssome Pythagorean nonsense about 81 being an elegant number, the square of 9 and such. With a nod to biblical lifespans,Leibniz proceeds to calculate what does look worthless.Moreover, he is De Witt's annuitybook going against the best published authority. of 1671 assignsa uniformdeath rate in the "yearsof vigor" up to 54, but then the rate increasesas vigordeclines. It is, however,our a-priorism that makes us think Leibniz was silly. He had studied de Witt's analysis with care and ample criticism(cf. Bier.). He knew that Hudde, studying mortality data for Amsterdam(of which he was mayor) was sure that a uniform
2 P.S. vx, p. 301. The connection betweenthe principlein staticsand in probability has been notedin Cout.,p. 227 f,n 4. Leibniz'suse of the principle of reasonhere follows acceptedseventeenth-century practice;cf. Oeuvrescomple'tesde Christian Huygens(lThe Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1920),xiv, p. 18.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

602

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

death rate up to 81 was the best possible fit.Hudde's reasoninlgs have neverbeen published,but Leibniz saw the mayorseveraltimes in 1676, and was sufficiently impressedthat he wanted to have Hudde's tables as an appendix to a new edition of Ars combinatoria.3 Moreover,even de Moivre's classic study on annuities (the best available well into the second half of the followingcentury) findsit convenientto adopt a uniformdistributionfor mortality. in the face of empiricalevidencewhen he opted Leibniz did not fly for a uniformdistribution. He took the simplest, most intelligible, and most mathematically tractable distributionthat conformsto the observations.It remains a curious incident in the historyof which "ought" to have confutedtoo chance thatmortality statistics, readya use of a principleof insufficient reason,actuallyconfirmed it. The "principle of indifference" confirmed by annuities is not epistemologicalbut causal. We assign equal probability to each potential year of death not because we are ignorant,but because we guess that death reaps smoothly and we check thisguess against statistics. but the objective tendenIt is not we who are indifferent, Leibniz here,becies towardmortality. It is easy to misunderstand cause he (incorrectly)told Bernoulli that de Witt employs the ''usual method" of calculating according to "equally possible In cases." Equiposs. describes the evolution of this terminology. the early days of probabilitythe word 'possibility'did not mean the epistemic or subjective notion commonly associated with it Laplace. When Leibniz says,"probability is degreeof possibility," for is clear fromthe context that 'possibility'itselfis a synonym the ease of making an outcome, that is, for the physicalproperty we call "propensity"or "tendency to occur." Far from being idiosyncratic, this usage was widespread. Indeed, although in his more philosophicalwritings Laplace professes to assignan epistemic use to 'possibility', in his most importantwork on the probability of causes, even Laplace uses 'possibility' to mean objective propensity. Leibniz used 'equally possible' to mean somethinglike "having an equal propensity to occur." He is also the first to use 'possibility' fora quite different idea which,fortoday'slogician,has superseded every other. 'Possible', according to him, means internallyconsistent.Leibniz was the first modern to understandthat proof is a formal matter,attaching to the form of sentences,not to their true' as provable fromidentitiesin content.He defined'necessarily
3 Cout. p. 241, n 4. Hudde's views can be inferred from de Witt's letters translated in The Assurance Magazine, in (1853): 93-120.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE

LOGIC

603

a finite number of steps. He inaugurated the theoryurged by Carnap: that necessityis analyticity. Possibility,then, is freedom from contradiction.For us it follows at once that there are two quite distinctconceptsof possibilityin question; for consistency is not propensityto occur. But in Leibniz's lists of definitions he regularlyexplains possibilityas freedomfrom contradiction, and in the next breath speaks of one thing being more possible than another.Somethingis easy or makeable if it is "verypossible." Leibniz's twinnednotions of possibilityare a deliberate part of his metaphysics.His theoryon the radical originationof things involvespossible objects striving forexistence.In the esotericwritings we are invited to contemplateconsistent notionshaving more than mere internalconsistency: theyhave a positivedrive to come into being. The more theyhave of this,the more possible theyare. "The possible demands existenceby its verynature,in proportion to its possibility, that is to say, its degree of essence" (P.S. vii, p. 194). In emphasizing thisaspect of Leibniz's thought, I admit that I am playing down his other story,in which reality is determined by "the principle of contingency, or of the existenceof things,i.e. of what is or appears the best among several equally possible things"(P.S. iv, p. 438). Leibniz's methodology of science alwaysmirrors his metaphysics, but nowhereis the isomorphism more striking than in the analysis of probability. His contemporariesand predecessorsall employ some terminology of the "facility"of gettingan outcome with a die. That, he remindsus, means "makeable." All earlywriters speak of the ease of making various outcomes,but for Leibniz ease of making goes with possibility, and probabilityis degree of possibility. Experimentsshow what is more or less makeable "in the current state of the world." What is facile in re corresponds to what is probable in mente. (For references and furtherdiscussion cf. Equiposs.) Note the parallel to the metaphysics. In the esoteric writings we do not read so much of a God choosingamong internally consistentstate descriptions that which describes a most perfect world: God's role is to conceive the possibilities. The aeatability of the thingswill correspondto the degree of possibility in the divine mind. Similarly, in our world the objective propensities of different outcomesto occur are the foundationof our mental expectations,the probabilities, which, as Leibniz had said, are degrees of possibility.Even for Leibniz such an intertwining of a special science and deepest metaphysics must seem bizarre; so I am glad to find that Mahnke anticipatedmy interpretation, and took

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

604

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

the probability-possibility-facility-creatability nexus as a finalproof of theway thatLeibniz linkedontology and physics.4 We now returnto our starting point. Leibniz had learned fromthe law that probabilityis a relationbetweenhypotheses and evidence. But he learned fromthe doctrineof chances that probabilitiesare a matter of physical propensities.Even now no philosopher has satisfactorily combined these two discoveries.Leibniz's combination,althoughunsatisfactory, is more fascinating than most.On the one hand we have degreesof makeability in re, whichwe may gloss as tendenciesto produce stable frequencies, an idea associatedwith Carnap's probability1. These are the basis of probabilitiesin mente, Carnap's probability2. In particular cases, such a line of thought can be sound. For example, if e assertsonly that in some chance set-upthe objective tendency is to produce outcomeE on repeated trials with stable relative frequency p, then the probabilityof the hypothesis thatE occurson the next trial,relativeto thisdata e, is surelyp. Leibniz appears to be inclined to say that this local piece of reasoninghas general application. Justas the possible worlds in the mind of God vie with one another for creation, so all the possibilitiesthat we can distinguish will also have some propensity to be actual. We can apply the calculus of probabilitiesto these possibleworlds.But we will do it by yetanotheraspect of Leibniz's grandscheme. Textbooks on probabilitynowadays oftenbegin with a chapter on combinationsand permutations.Inevitably we take Leibniz's youthfulArs combinatoria to be in the same line of business. This early monographon the theoryof combinationsconfirms his claim to have helped advance probability theory.That he had probability theoryin mind, is proved by internal evidence and also by his proposal to publish Hudde's tables as an appendix. But that is only a small part of the story. The art of combinationswas already an established problem area. It was directed not at probability theorybut at ideas. From any vocabularyof ideas we can build otherideas by formal combinationof signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas. Everyonethought that the right ideas would be simple. From an exhaustiveset of simple ideas one would generateall possible complex ideas. This is done formally as
4Dietrich Mahnke, "Leibnizens Synthesevon Universalmathematikund Individualmetaphysik," Jahrbuch fur Philosophie und phdnomenologische Forschung, viI (1925): 305-611, esp. p. 384.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE

LOGIC

605

an operation on signs for the ideas, and this was the point of the art of combinations.Leibniz's predecessors were enrapturedwith the thoughtthat the world could be understoodfroma set of signs. Here I have in mind not greatfigures such as Descartesand Spinoza, but that myriadof lesser intellectswhose pattern of thoughthas recentlybeen well set out in Michel Foucault's The Order of Things. Those dozens of programsfor universal grammar were motivatedby a belief thatif onlywe could uncoverin the collective wisdomof mankinda suitable set of ideas, thenwe would be able to unlock all the secretsof the universe.Universal grammar,which has recently been presentedas a key for understanding mind, was in those days a project for understanding all of nature. Much of Leibniz's intellectualpolitics is a part of this ferment. His plans foracademies and scientific journals intendto coordinate knowledge so that we can discoverwhat are the true underlying ideas. Many of his predecessors hoped to uncover an original language precedingBabel. It would encode the true ideas. Leibniz's better plans did not believe in lost innocence but rather in a science and a language that more and more closely correspondto the structure of the universe. His encyclopediaof unifiedscience would collect all presentknowledgeso we can sift throughit for we can what is fundamental. With the set of ideas that it generates, formulatethe Universal Characteristic. The art of combinations will enable us to compute all descriptions of possible worlds that can be expressedwith that stockof ideas. And the possible worlds so describedwill all have some propensity to exist. The Characteristic is supposed to enable us to computethe probabilities of disputed hypothesesrelative to the available data. If our Characteristic is foundedon simple ideas, then therewill be no finitelystateable a priori reason that would cause one possible world describable in our language to come to pass rather than another. We thus have a set of alternativesconstituting a fundamentalprobabilityset to which we can apply a uniform priorprobability distribution. The prior distribution is applied not because our set is one among whose alternatives we are ignorant:it is a set such that by metaphysics we know each elementhas some propensity to exist. Relative to our finiteknowledgewe may be able to assign only a uniformdistributionover possibilities,but we will slowly correctthis, and as we learn more our probabilityassignments will asymptotically tend to a maximum for the real world, i.e., the possibility with the highestactual propensity. The doctrine of chances applies not thanksto some epistemological principle of

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

6o6

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

indifference, but by grace of a metaphysicalascription of propensities. Leibniz's new kind of logic is, then, a compound of three disparate elements.First,there is the doctrineof chances, conceived in Leibniz's own time and flourishing now as never before. Secondly,thereis a theory of possibility. Some partsof it, originalwith Leibniz, have become the truismsof our logicians, but the parts most pertinentto probability,though the truismsof yesteryear, are now almost wholly repudiated. And those parts which have their chief role in metaphysicsare peculiar to Leibniz. Finally, there is the theoryof ideas, a final flourishto the intellectual programs of a precedingera. Ideas, possibility, and chances create a matrixwithin which inductive logic could be conceived.They leave open technicalquestions that have vexed us recently. The problem of choice of initial measure function is present in what Leibniz proposes, but only after Carnap can we understand it properly. Nevertheless,it is pleasant to note that a Leibnizian ought to like Carnap's preferred c*. It is a methodologicalconsequenceof the identity of indiscernibles. Structuredescriptionsare the finestpartitionsof possibility that produce descriptionsof states of affairsthat are distinguishable by the predicatesavailable to a monadic language. A uniform priordistribution overstructure descriptions is just c*. There is an alternative,however. Leibniz had an important theory of what he called "architectonic" reasoning.There is deductive a priori reasoning,and inductive a posteriorireasoning,but there is a middle ground of central importance to science. We favorhypotheses for theirsimplicity and explanatorypower,much as the architectof the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.The paradigm of this kind of reasoningis our preference for the principle of least time over Descartes'sexplanation of Snell's (purely inductive) law of refraction(P.S. vii, pp. 270-279). I findthisaspect of Leibniz's thought farmore attractive than his faith in the global application of the doctrineof chances. Serious scientific methodologyis architectonic, not probabilistic. Leibniz would doubtlessnot agree to this dichotomy.Indeed, he said that hypothesesare the more probable according as they are simpler, and cover the greatervarietyof phenomena (P.S. I, 195). Hence the Leibnizian might wish his prior probability assignmentsto conformnot to c* but to Harold Jeffreys' simplicitypostulate. needs the simplicitypostulate in order to get positive Jeffreys

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE LOGIC

607

but his is a purelyepistermoprobabilitiesforlaw-likepropositions, logical thesis for which only pragmaticreasons have been given. For Leibniz, in contrast,it is one more pleasant consequence of metaphysics. Simplicity of coveringlaws and varietyof phenomena are the twin measures of perfectionfor possible worlds. Hence laws with those featureswill have a greaterobjective tendencyto realitythan cumbersomeor restricted principles.As in our earlier discussion,high probabilities derived from a simplicitypostulate are groundedon a metaphysical ascriptionof propensities. The gist of Carnap's programis so well known that I have spent this paper on reconstructing Leibniz rather than recalling what Carnap did in recent years. Critics of Carnap have not been of inductivelogic, also lacking,but Leibniz, the antique progenitor and chance: of the provides us with a critique. Ideas, possibility, triad of notions that gave him his new kind of logic, two are unacceptable. The merestresume of the awful problem about ideas will have to suffice here, for it has had much recent discussion. Nelson Goodman has taught us how an inductivelogic cruciallydepends on our having the rightideas. It is not a new point: C. D. Broad insisted in 1921 that all induction has to be relative to a set of when one natural kinds.This was familiarin the sixteenth century, was explicitlylooking for criteriaof sortinggood ideas frombad ones, and it is a topic in the Port Royal Logic. One mightsay that Goodman reminded us of the old riddle of induction,which for some time was superseded by the new problem that arose when Hume challenged the doctrine of necessaryconnection. Leibniz mightbe contentto have inductivelogic relativeto a set of ideas coded in a language, so long as it is the best language available. This approach providesa quite general way of ignoring all problemsabout natural kinds. If one does not mind what Russell feltto be "the undulypracticalnatureof Leibniz's philosophy," one should, like the logicians at Port Royal, tryto do inductions with whateverkinds at presentseem natural. This is Mary Hesse's solution to the Goodman paradoxes: only our presentkinds can fittedinto our presentphysics,and we should be as conveniently use them until we have a better physicsor discover kinds that handle our present physicsbetter. Inductive logic becomes selfconsciously triadic. Inductive probabilities are relative not just and evito the evidence,but to the language in which hypotheses our dence are expressed.Leibniz was confident that science would

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

6o8

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

more and more closelyapproximatea true descriptionof the universe. So he thought that the best language for currentscience would more and more closelyapproximatea divine language which offers the descriptionsof all possible worlds. With such expectations there is nothing foolish in computingprobabilitiesrelative resultingfrom any curto our best language, for any distortions would be asymptotrent edition of the Universal Characteristic ically smoothed out. Today, we are less sanguine. The inductive skeptic proposes that our present natural kinds are the merest accidents, suited to the past but irrelevantto the future. It is sensible to compute inductiveprobabilitiesrelative to a language only if thereis a reasonable expectationthat the categoriesof that language will fit the future as well as the past. That reasonable be founded on induction. expectationcannot, without circularity, if can that A Leibniz have expectation, not as a specifictenet of at least as a part of his view of the world. We are enmetaphysics, titledto no such view of the world. So, althoughwe may compute some Probability (hypothesis, evidence, language), we cannot be entitledto use thatas any guide in life,forwe lack Leibniz's reason to think that our language is a better inductive guide to the future than Goodman's. I am not contending that Goodman's and for the sake of language is as good as ours. I am tentatively presentargumentassentingto Paul Feyerabend'sthesisthat Goodinduction. man's riddlesrefute Even if some magic could assure us that we had the rightsigns, remindsus of another probthe Leibnizian doctrineof possibility lem. How are we entitledto apply probabilitytheoryto the set of offered by some favoredset of signs?We can, of course, alternatives hedge bets. We can say that if we place bets on some possibilities we are bound, in coherence,to make other bets on other possibilities. But this gives us no objective measure of the probabilityof propositionsin the light of data, forone can findcoherentsystems of bettingrates that give any arbitrary probabilityto any proposition in the light of any inconclusivedata. Only if one were prepared to postulate, with Leibniz, that every possible world has some propensityto occur, would one go some distance toward of chances. applyingthedoctrine to occur,a student If possibleworldsdo not have some propensity of Carnap can only hope that bet-hedging will justifythe use of a probabilitycalculus. Carnap had faith in our gradually developing formalizable intuitions which would sort out rational from for the irrational bets: inductive logic then becomes bet-hedging

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LEIBNIZ-CARNAP

PROGRAM FOR INDUCTIVE

LOGIC

609

rational man. Originallyhe hoped thatinductivelogic would finda natural place in the logical syntax of language. But the later work, insofar as it is logic and not just betting,has to rely on a Keynesian faith in "intuitions"of probability(in turn modeled on G. E. Moore's "intuitions"of goodness). This is a thoroughly the art regressive step; for,as F. P. Ramsey wrotewhen recreating of bet-hedging, there is a "fundamentalcriticismof Mr. Keynes' view, which is the obvious one that therereally do not seem to be any such thingsas the probabilityrelationshe describes".5 Ramsey says that neither he nor others ever perceive such relations.But, of inductivelogic have a as I. J. Good has noted, Carnap's systems perfectly straightforward application once we have positiveknowledge about the propensitiesof some possible statesof affairs. The continuumof inductivemethodsis appropriateto samplingfroma population of unknown size in which,regardlessof the size of the population, everyindividual has as good a chance of selection as any other. This is called "multinomial sampling," subject to the that our predictionsabout particularindividualsshould constraint be independentof the size of the population. Occasionally inductivelogiciansgive themselves away. Speakingof a situationin which individuals of certain kinds have never been noticed, Hintikka says, "there have been plenty of opportunitiesfor the remaining kinds of individuals to prove that theyare not empty."8Such talk of "opportunity"can be readily found in the old seventeenth-centurydoctrineof chances,but thereit was alwaysrestricted to situations in which one knew something about the opportunity of various outcomes to occur, or the ease of making certain outcomes. It is completelyunwarrantedfor a systemof logic supposed to apply to all knowledge.We can deliberately construct experimental devices in which we practicemultinomialsampling.Otherwise, we virtuallynever engage in such sampling. We can draw objective conclusionsabout what is probable only relative to some assumptions about propensities. That is, we can have objective probabilities relative to data of a veryspecial kind. We can also hedge bets about almostanything. Inductivelogic triedto combinebet-hedging and the doctrineof chances. That is, it tried to be both objective and global. It can plausibly do that only if some assumptionslike
5 F. P. Ramsey, "Truth and Probability," in The Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays (London: Kegan Paul, 1931), p. 161. 6 Jaakko Hintikka, "Towards a Theory of Inductive Generalization," in Logic Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Proceedings of the 1964 Congress (Amsterdam:North-Holland, 1965), p. 276.

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

6io

THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Leibniz's can be made. Hence it had some plausibilityin the past. As a global discipline,it has no future. Objective local inductivelogic is alreadya reality.It is practiced by statisticians.It is possible because there are some objective propensitiesto give stable frequenciesand because by using sampling techniques we can devise many more that help us with inferences.The Leibnizian error lies not in founding inductive logic on propensitiesbut in extending it to propensitiesbeyond our ken. I thinkCarnap was wrongto give up trying for an inductive logic foundedon propensities-in thisregardhis contemporary Hans Reichenbach had a better program. Non-Leibnizians who care about inductivelogic must turn away fromthe magic of signs and the mythsof possibility, and instead produce analyses of objective inconclusive good reasons that fit particular cases. All, I believe,will be foundedon the kindsof propensity first investigated in theseventeenth century.7
IAN HACKING

CambridgeUniversity

POSSIBILITY, PROPENSITY, AND CHANCE: SOME DOUBTS ABOUT THE HACKING THESIS * comprehensiblewhen he discovered-or thought he discovered-that it had been derived fromLeibniz's "logic." Whatever its meritsas intellectualbiography,this thesisdid lead to challenging results when employed as a critical implement. Russell argued plausibly that errorsand limitationsof Leibniz's were tied to an indefensibleunwillingnessto countemetaphysics nance nonmonadic predicatesin his logic. In a sense,Mr Hacking reversesthe line of Russell's critique. He claims that Leibniz's views on probabilitylogic reflect and partlydepend on the ontological thesisthatpossible entitiesstrivewith one anotherforexistence. Evidently Hacking does not regardtheDaseinstrebendoctrine as in any degree credible, for he dismissesit with a wave of the
7 This theme is developed in mycontribution to thesymposium on "Probability as a Dispositional Property," at the 4th International forLogic, Congress Methodologv and Philosophv of Science.Bucharest. 1971. * To be presented in an APA symposium on Carnap and Leibniz,December

USSELL began to findLeibniz's "fairytale" metaphysics

ductive Logic,"thisJOURNAL, thisissue,pp. 597-610.

28, 1971, commentingon Ian Hacking, "The Camnap-LeibnizProgram for In-

This content downloaded from 132.248.56.165 on Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:25:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions