The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal

by James Franklin

The Dogmatists naturally demanded to know how many times counted as “very many” and pointed to the absurdity of taking, for example, forty-nine times as not enough to support an inference but fifty times as enough. They asked again how experience worthy of inference could be composed of experiences each of which was not worthy of inference.31 A natural reply would have been that the probability of the induction increases gradually with the number of observed instances, but the Empirics were diverted from making this discovery by having on hand another intellectual structure into which the case would fit. They simply answered that the situation is the same as a heap: it is impossible to say exactly how many grains of wheat are needed to make a heap; nevertheless it remains true that very many grains form a heap.