Foundations, Applications & Theory of Inductive Logic

虽然我们的祖先并没有通过轮盘赌来摆脱剑齿虎，但我们在不确定性下的推理能力显然是人类在地球上持续统治的原因之一。归纳逻辑，这个项目的主题，旨在描述，预测，理解，自动化和提高我们的能力，不确定性推理。今天，不确定推理渗透到我们的日常生活，政治，（商业）决策，自然科学（包括概率论和统计学）。现代归纳逻辑是由鲁道夫·卡尔纳普资助和推广的。尽管卡尔纳普和他的同事们取得了令人印象深刻的进展，归纳逻辑的研究计划从未在哲学，逻辑，数学和计算机科学中获得牵引力。这无疑是，至少部分是由于拉卡托斯，诺顿，波普尔，塞登菲尔德对归纳逻辑的一些有影响力的批评。尤其是纳尔逊·古德曼的绿蓝悖论，在早期阶段就有可能使卡尔纳普的方法陷入困境。尽管卡尔纳普的回答，归纳逻辑学家一直面临着一个艰难的战斗从这一点上。今天的归纳逻辑学家采取古德曼指出，第一，违反完全证据原则（如已经制定的卡尔纳普）将导致反直觉的结果;第二，归纳推理取决于潜在的语言。我们并没有因此而受到威胁，而是将其视为一个令人兴奋的研究机会，旨在形式化更大部分的可用证据，并调查归纳推理与底层形式框架的（不）依赖性。今天，哲学家、计算机科学家和数学家组成的小型但专注的团体再次挥舞着归纳逻辑的旗帜。不幸的是，群体之间几乎没有密切的互动，这是实现归纳逻辑前景的主要障碍。此外，在我们看来，归纳逻辑没有得到更广泛的社区的赞赏，这可能是由于归纳逻辑学家之间缺乏感知的凝聚力。因此，该网络提案旨在1.支持和协调归纳逻辑和2.引起人们对归纳逻辑的新的令人兴奋的工作的注意。

While our ancestors did not escape the saber-tooths by thrashing them at roulette, our ability to reason under uncertainty is clearly one of the causes of the continued dominance of the human species on earth. Inductive logic, the topic of this proposed project, aims to describe, predict, understand, automate and improve our faculties for uncertain inference. Today, uncertain inference permeates our daily lives, politics, (business) decision making, the natural sciences (including probability theory and statistics).Modern-era inductive logic was funded and popularised by Rudolf Carnap. Despitethe impressive progress made by Carnap and his co-workers, the research programme of inductive logic never gained traction in philosophy, logic, mathematics nor in computer science. This is undoubtedly, at least partially, due to a number of influential criticisms levelled at inductive logic by Lakatos, Norton, Popper, Seidenfeld. Nelson Goodman’s grue paradox, in particular, threatened to sink Carnap’s approach at an early stage. Carnap’s replies notwithstanding, inductive logicians have been facing an uphill battle from that point on.Inductive logicians today take Goodman to point out that, first, violations of the Principle of Total Evidence (as already formulated by Carnap) will bring about counter-intuitive results; and second, that inductive inference depends on the underlying language. Rather than being threatened by this, we take this to be an opportunity for exciting research aiming at formalising ever larger parts of the available evidence and investigating the (in-)dependence of inductive inference with respect to the underlying formal framework.Today, small but dedicated groups of philosophers, computer scientists and mathematicians are once again flying the inductive logic flag. Unfortunately, there is little close interaction between groups, which is a major obstacle in realising the prospects of inductive logic. Furthermore, inductive logic does not receive the appreciation by the wider communities it, in our views, deserves – possibly due to the lack of perceived cohesion among inductive logicians. This network proposal hence aims to1. support and coordinate inductive logicians and2. draw attention to new exciting work on inductive logic.