Given the mutually agreed upon fact that inductiveinference could fail, agreeing that it does fail for someone similar to the inferrer in a distant possible world incurs no additional epistemological cost
(Contrasted with purely descriptive scientific inquiry)
A normative enterprise that tells us how we ought to reason from evidence and how we ought to justify our beliefs, as distinct from merely describing how we do reason or justify beliefs
inductive inference(Contrasted with the author's characterization of immediate moral judgment)
A form of reasoning that includes inference to the best explanation and reasoning from empirical evidence
possible world(Leibniz's account of modality; 'existence' of possible worlds is shorthand for compossibility, not literal existence)
A set of compossible essences — a maximal collection of individual natures that can co-exist without contradiction
Peter Forrest (1982) argues that modal realism leads to inductive scepticism. According to modal realism, there are other thinkers very much like us who are deceived by their surroundings. Given this, we should doubt our inductive inferences. Lewis’s reply is that modal realism does not make inductive challenges any worse than they were before. It is common ground that inductive inference is fallible. That is, it is common ground that these inferences could fail. Thinking of the possibilities of