“The absolute pessimistic induction states that earlier theories, although successful, were abandoned, so current theories, although successful, will also be abandoned. by contrast, the relative pessimistic induction states that earlier theories, although superior to their predecessors, were discarded, so current theories, although superior to earlier theories, will also be discarded. some pessimists would have us believe that the relative pessimistic induction avoids empirical progressivism. i argue, however, that it has the same problem as the absolute pessimistic induction, viz., either its premise is implausible or its conclusion does not probably follow from its premise.”

“Van fraassen contends that there is no argument that rationally compels us to disbelieve a successful theory, t. i object that this contention places upon him the burden of showing that scientific antirealists’ favorite arguments, such as the pessimistic induction, do not rationally compel us to disbelieve t. van fraassen uses the english view of rationality to rationally disbelieve t. i argue that realists can use it to rationally believe t, despite scientific antirealists’ favorite arguments against t.”

“Some philosophers argue that non-presentist a-theories (i.e. the views that the tenses—past, present, and future—are objective features and that not only present things exist) problematically imply that we cannot know that this moment is present. the problem is usually presented as arising from the combination of the a-theoretic ideology of a privileged presentness and a non-presentist ontology. the goal of this essay is to show that the epistemic problem can be rephrased as a pessimistic induction. by doing so, i will show that the epistemic problem, in fact, stems from the a-theoretic ideology alone. hence, once it is properly presented, the epistemic problem presents a serious threat to all a-theories.”

“The pessimistic induction (pi) plays an important role in the contemporary realism/anti-realism debate in philosophy of science. but there is some disagreement about the structure and aim of the argument. and a number of scholars have noted that there is more than one type of pi in the philosophical literature. i review four different versions of the pi. i aim to show that pis have been appealed to by philosophers of science for a variety of reasons. even some realists have appealed to a pi. my goal is to advance our understanding of (1) what the various pis can teach us about science and (2) the threat posed by pis to scientific realism.”

“Putnam and laudan separately argue that the falsity of past scientific theories gives us reason to doubt the truth of current theories. their arguments have been highly influential, and have generated a significant literature over the past couple of decades. most of this literature attempts to defend scientific realism by attacking the historical evidence on which the premises of the relevant argument are based. however, i argue that both putnam’s and laudan’s arguments are fallacious, and hence attacking their premises is unnecessary. the paper concludes with a discussion of the further historical evidence that would be required if the pessimistic induction is to present a serious threat to scientific realism. © 2001 kluwer academic publishers.”

“After decades of intense debate over the old pessimistic induction (laudan, 1977; putnam, 1978), it has now become clear that it has at least the following four problems. first, it overlooks the fact that present theories are more successful than past theories. second, it commits the fallacy of biased statistics. third, it erroneously groups together past theories from different fields of science. four, it misses the fact that some theoretical components of past theories were preserved. i argue that these four problems entitle us to construct what i call the grand pessimistic induction that since the old pessimistic induction has infinitely many hidden problems, the new pessimistic induction (stanford, 2006) also has infinitely many hidden problems.”