Skip to main content

Sage Social Science Thesaurus

Search from vocabulary

Content language

Concept information

social science subjects > social research > philosophy and the social sciences > philosophy of science > pessimistic induction
... > social science subjects > business and management > organization studies > organization studies encyc > philosophy of organizations > philosophy of science > pessimistic induction
... > social science subjects > sociology > anthropology > research/theoretical frameworks > philosophy of science > pessimistic induction

Preferred term

pessimistic induction  

Definition

  • A pessimistic induction is an argument that makes use of empirical claims about the history of science—especially accounts of past theories that are false by our lights—to argue that we have little reason to believe that our own theories are even approximately true, or refer to real objects, in the parts of their claims that go beyond matters observable by the human senses. These are claims such as that electrons have spin, since electrons are too small to observe directly with the human eye. [Source: Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences; Pessimistic Induction]

Broader concept

Belongs to group

URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/pessimistic_induction

Download this concept:

RDF/XML TURTLE JSON-LD