Date/Time
Date(s) - 4 Dec 2013
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
NYU Torch Club
Category(ies) No Categories
Meeting of the New York City History of Science Society Consortium
December 4th, 2013 6:00 PM
NYU-Torch Club, 18 Waverly Place
John McCaskey, Brown University
“Myths in the History of Induction”
David Hume had nothing to say about induction. John Stuart Mill did not advocate its use. Francis Bacon did not originate his famous “idols.” And Aristotle did not think complete enumeration was a kind of induction. These are just a few of the myths in the history of induction. They all stem from a failure to recognize two conflicting views about how scientists develop universal statements and laws from particular observations and experiments. Both views go by the name “induction.” In this presentation, Dr. McCaskey will distinguish the views, untangle their entwined history, and show why, for example, we think Hume had something important to say about induction when Hume himself did not.
Dr. McCaskey has been researching, writing, and speaking on the history of the philosophy of induction for ten years. He has just completed the first Latin translation and English edition of Jacopo Zabarella´s *On Methods*and *On Regressus*, to be published this month in Harvard´s I Tatti Renaissance Library. McCaskey taught seminars for several years at Stanford, did so once at Stevens Institute of Technology, and now teaches at Brown University. Before getting his PhD at Stanford, he spent twenty years in the computer business. He has graduate degrees in engineering, business, and liberal arts, and holds four US patents.
Sponsoring Organizations:
Metropolitan New York Section of the History of Science Society
New York University
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Columbia University
University Seminar in History and Philosophy of Science
City University of New York
Ph.D. Program in History, History of Science Lecture Series
New York Academy of Sciences
Section for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology