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The Predictive Inference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Wesley C. Salmon*
Affiliation:
Brown University

Extract

A common type of inductive problem is to predict the nature of an unobserved finite sample of a given population on the basis of an observed finite sample of the same population. More precisely, given a class of events A, we examine a sample Sn having n members, of which mi belong to the class Bi. On the basis of our knowledge that mi/n of Sn have been Bi, we attempt to predict the ratio of members of Bi to members of A in a sample Sr containing r unobserved members of A. This type of inference has been called “predictive inference” by Carnap. It is not necessary to argue that all inductive problems reduce to this form; we merely observe that such problems frequently arise, and that they have practical and theoretical importance. In The Short Run I suggested that this kind of problem could be handled by first determining the long run probability P(A, Bi) of Bi, relative to A (presumably on the basis of the relative frequency Fn(A, Bi) of Bi, to A in the observed sample Sn) and then predicting that the relative frequency of Bi within the unobserved sample Sr (the short run) will approximate P(A, Bi) sufficiently for practical purposes. The foregoing procedure requires a rule of each of two types: a rule for the ascertainment of the values of long run probabilities, and a rule for the application of knowledge of long run probabilities to predictions in the short run. The Short Run was not concerned with the nature and justification of rules of the first type, but rather sought to justify a rule of the second type on the assumption that we already possess knowledge of long run probabilities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1957, The Williams & Wilkins Company

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References

1 Rudolf Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), p. 207.

2 Wesley C. Salmon, “The Short Run,” Philosophy of Science, July, 1955.

3 For the argument in “The Short Run” it was necessary to assume that the long run probabilities mature in the long run, i.e., .

4 Hans Reichenbach, The Theory of Probability (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), p. 446.

5 Ibid., p. 447.

6 Wesley C. Salmon, “Regular Rules of Induction”, The Philosophical Review, July 1956.

7 Reichenbach, op. cit., p. 447.

8 Hilary Putnam, in his unpublished doctoral dissertation (U.C.L.A.) has investigated the problem of finitization of the probability concept and has shown that the finitization eliminates a good deal of the arbitrariness cited in this paper.