Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Continuing the thoughts on induction I began last week, re: David Stove. If we know that there are 100 swans in the world, and we have seen each swan, recording each as white, then the conclusion "all swans are white" is a matter no longer of induction but of deduction. I'm not sure how it would go formally, but I'm pretty sure you get to that conclusion from those premises. [Even there, one might wonder -- is the first swan that I checked still white? Maybe they can go black as they molt, or something? But let's ignore the impact of the passage of time on swans.] I've seen all swans, all the swans I've seen are white, therefore all swans are white. That's a deduction, so nobody likely objects to calling it a proof.  If so, then let's relax the assumption of completeness: the gradual addition of swans to my data base, the movement from 20 to 30, swans, thus from 20% to 30% of the universe, remains induction, remains something less than p...

An enjoyable takedown of Stove, which acknowledges his strengths. Yes, it's 11 years old. I've just come across it. It appears that the author planned to make this a part one, but I haven't found any follow-through. Still, he states his essential point. http://maverickphilosopher.blogspot.com/2004/11/david-stove-anti-philosopher.html All that said, Stove did state a view of the problem of induction that I find of interest. Suppose the size of the universe of swans is known. There are exactly 100 swans in the world. I haven't seen all of them, and I wonder about the truth of the statement "all swans are white." Stove's point, if I understand him, is simply that the process called induction is simply a matter of getting closer to completeness. If I have seen twenty swans, and all are white, then the proposition in question is true of 20% of the universe of swans. If I see 10 more and the generalization holds, then it is true of 30% of that universe...