Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology

by Hilary Kornblith

Hilary Kornblith presents an account of inductive inference that addresses both its metaphysical and epistemological aspects. He argues that inductive knowledge is possible by virtue of the fit between our innate psychological capacities and the causal structure of the world. Kornblith begins by developing an account of natural kinds that has its origins in John Locke's work on real and nominal essences. In Kornblith's view, a natural kind is a stable cluster of properties that are bound together in nature. The existence of such kinds serves as a natural ground of inductive inference.Kornblith then examines two features of human psychology that explain how knowledge of natural kinds is attained. First, our concepts are structured innately in a way that presupposes the existence of natural kinds. Second, our native inferential tendencies tend to provide us with accurate beliefs about the world when applied to environments that are populated by natural kinds.

Genres: Philosophy

136 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1993

About the author

Hilary Kornblith is an American Professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, and one of contemporary epistemology's most prominent proponents of naturalized epistemology. Kornblith received his B.A. from SUNY Buffalo in 1975 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1980, where he studied under Sydney Shoemaker and Richard Boyd. Before coming to University of Massachusetts in 2003, Kornblith taught at the University of Vermont, where he also chaired the department from 1991 to 1997. His research interests include epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Apart from naturalized epistemology, his most recent work includes the role of intuitions in philosophical theorizing, the conflicts between internalism and externalism in epistemology, and the mental states of non-human animals.

Reviews

[Jonathan Badgley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book on natural kinds and induction. There are two main questions that Kornblith addresses:

1) what is the world like that we can know it?
2) how are we such that we can know the world

To address the first question, Kornblith focuses on the work of Locke on induction and shows that arguments against natural kinds (varieties of conventionalism) fail. Natural kinds are homeostatic clusters, and we should rely on our sciences to identify them.

To address the second question, he focuses on empirical work on human cognition and rationality. Crossing over work by human development psychologists, Chomsky and Kahneman and Tyversky, Kornblith argues that we should not concede ground to quinean minimalists as there is ample evidence that we have innate perceptual capacity for natural kinds.

It would be interesting to see whether the empirical work of the last ~30 years supports this view or not!

[Angraecus Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a novice when it comes to epistemology. So when I first read about 'natural kinds' I didn't understand the significance. This book explains why the subject is important to epistemology, and does so in a fairly easy to follow manner.