Induction Problem of Logical Positivism

     Induction is one of the most important approaches for logical positivism. For example: ‘How do you know that aspirin will take care of your headache?’ Your ability to do things like predict how a medication will affect you and you know through induction. Life requires that you have other ways of reasoning. In addition to knowing how one fact leads to another, you also need to take what you’ve experienced before, and use that to predict what might happen in the future. However, induction is not healthy and valid always because of reasons mentioned below.

     Inductive reasoning relies on the predictability of nature to reveal that the future is likely to resemble the past, often in important ways. For example, there is tons of research to support the knowledge that aspirin is an effective treatment for pain like headaches. And you probably have personal experience with the effects of aspirin, too. So, you believe that this aspirin tablet will cure the headache you have right now because countless aspirin tablets have cured countless headaches in the past. But it’s important to remember that, unlike deduction, where true premises entail true  conclusions, inductive premises only mean that the conclusion is likely to be true. Inductive arguments don’t provide you with certainty. Instead, they work in terms of probabilities. However, the future doesn’t always resemble the past. And every pattern has its outliers. So induction always has the potential to produce false results. For example, aspirin might not work on a really bad headache. Furthermore, you have to research all people who have headache in the world and you have to be sure that aspirin cures their headaches completely. 

     When everything is taken into account, induction approach of logical positivism does not always  give healthy results. The induction principle on which positive science is based and the principle that regular-causal relationships observed in nature will be valid in the future (ie, the future can be predicted more or less) is a logical and psychological illusion. Inductive generalizations are based on available evidence and this method cannot be fundamental to science. Moreover, even the mathematical probability put forward against it does not confirm scientific knowledge.