ABSTRACT
W E have seen in Part I that the hypothetico-deductive system is the characteristic framework of scientific inference. This means that there cannot be a method of induction. We have also seen that there are non-instantial concepts, and that a non-instantial hypothesis, which embodies them, cannot be the conclusion in an inductive inference. In Part II we have considered the claim of induction to be a type of scientific inference concerned with generalisations which are instantial. To justify it, one or other of the major premisses discussed has to be introduced: the Law of Uniformity of Nature or of Universal Causation, the Principle of Limitation of Independent Variety or some principle of uniform connexion between generators and inductive properties. But none of these is successful. On the other hand, the positivist approach, which corresponds to the operationalist handling of hypotheses, leaves the problem unsolved. Thus neither approach to induction solves the problem.
