Re-reading Jevons's Principles of Science-Induction Redux

Abstract

In this paper I try to substantiate the thesis that Jevons may have been too harsh on the vices of induction and generously optimistic about the virtues of deduction, as discussed, primarily, in his magnum opus, The Principles of Science. With this aim in mind the paper attempts to suggest (modern), recursion theoretic, theoretical technologies that could reduce and, under conditions that I claim would be acceptable to Jevons, even eliminate the inductive indeterminacies that he had emphasised.