Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, Volume I

Rudolf Carnap and Richard C. Jeffrey’s Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, Volume I gathers seminal work charting Carnap’s late-career re-architecture of inductive logic. Moving beyond the single preferred c\*-method of Logical Foundations of Probability (1950), this volume documents the shift to a “continuum” of c-functions and then to a still broader framework sensitive to analogy and similarity, informed by de Finetti’s representation theorem and contemporary probability/statistics. Anchored by Carnap’s “Basic System” (presented here in detail) and complemented by foundational essays—including the programmatic “Inductive Logic and Rational Decisions”—the collection recasts logical probability in the idiom of events, models, and conditionalization, aligning formal inductive methods with Bayesian decision theory while distinguishing logical from statistical notions of information and entropy.

Framed by Jeffrey’s editorial introduction and Carnap’s own historical notes, the book doubles as an intellectual roadmap through the 1950s–60s renaissance in formal epistemology: collaborations with John Kemeny, dialogue with Savage and Putnam, and the systematic adoption of mathematical tools that were absent from Carnap’s earlier work. For philosophers of science, statisticians, and decision theorists, Volume I offers both a definitive statement of Carnap’s mature foundations and a launch pad for the unfinished upper stories—issues of confirmation, learning from analogy, and representation—that Volume II continues. It’s essential reading for anyone who wants to see how inductive logic became conversant with modern probability while retaining a distinctly logical—normative—conception of rational belief.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.