🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3942@jhunix.UUCP>, ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) writes:
> >> All scientific beliefs are in principle falsifiable by experiment.
> >For example, I suppose, the scientific belief that all scientific
> >beliefs are in principle falsifiable by experiment...
> 
> this does make sense... doesn't lead to a contradiction unless
> one such experiment produces the paradoxical result.

What is "the paradoxical result"? If it is true that "All scientific
beliefs are falsifiable by experiment" (F) and F is itself a
scientific belief, then either (1) F is falsifiable (and I'd be
interested to hear a potential scenario for getting such a result), in
which case the generalization is valid, or (2) F is not falsifiable,
in which case the generalization is simply false. There's no paradox here; no
self-denying statements. Just the (Popperian variant) on a problem as
old as Hume: The apparent impossibility of justifying induction
without already presupposing or relying on it in doing so.
-- 

Stevan Harnad                                  (609) - 921 7771
{allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard}  !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mind@princeton.csnet