Bayesian Personalism, Falsificationism, and the Problem of Induction

Abstract

The practical problem of induction is that of how to modify preexisting expectations about the future in the light of incoming evidence. There is nothing in Hume's arguments to prevent there being a uniquely rational recipe for doing this. The Bayesians claim to have found such a recipe in Bayesian Conditionalization. Bayesian personalists claim that the rationality of this recipe solves the practical problem of induction, which arises in everyday life, and in statistical and scientific inference, and quite possibly the sceptical problem as well. I defend this solution against some standard traditional sceptical arguments concerning induction, and against falsificationist criticisms. I also defend it against a new species of scepticism, about the rationality of acting so as to maximize one's own expected utility function, due to David Miller.