Induction and empiricism: a Bayesian-Frequentist alternative

The theory of confirmation sketched herein is subjectivist in a manner that will be explained. According to it, however, the degree of confirmation of a hypothesis is an objectively existing relative frequency (or a propensity, if one prefers). The resolution of this apparent paradox is simple, but its implications are, I believe, profound. I am convinced that they provide the means for resolving all of the current "paradoxes/' "riddles," and "puzzles" of confirmation and induction. This is an overstatement only if one assumes, contra hypothesis, that all is pretty much all right with contemporary theories of confirmation and that resolution of difficulties will consist only of a little patching up here and there. On the contrary, I argue, these "paradoxes," "riddles," etc., are legitimate reductios ad absurdum of most current confirmation theories, and their resolution requires the rather radical approach indicated by the first two sentences of this essay. Since the solution that I advocate is radical, I begin with a rather detailed and elementary discussion of some of the crucial aspects of the problem, including a few of the more relevant historical ones. This will explain, I hope, the extremely refractory nature of the problem as well as the surprisingly small amount of progress that has been made toward its solution since it was posed by Hume and, finally, the necessity for the drastic measures that I have been led to propose. This discussion will be followed by a brief outline of the proposed contingent (though not "empirical") theory of confirmation that allows us to escape the skepticism of Hume. This includes a discussion of the nature of the prior (or