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No rules Here is a systematic survey of the many accounts of induction and confirmation in the literature with a special concern for the basic principles that ground inductive inference. I believe it is possible to see that all extant accounts depend on one or more of three basic principles. "A Little Survey of Induction," in P. Achinstein, ed., Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1905. pp. 9-34. Download.
I do not believe, however, that any of these principles works universally and can ever be applied without some sort of adjustment to the case at hand. This has led to a proposal about the nature of inductive inference. I urge that we have been misled by the model of deductive inference into seeking a general theory in which inductive inferences are ultimately licensed by their conformity to universal schemas. Instead, in a "material theory of induction," I urge that inductive inference is licensed by facts that prevail in particular domains only, so that "all induction is local." "A Material Theory of Induction" Philosophy of Science 70(October 2003), pp. 647-70. Download.

In a material theory of induction, inductive inferences are warranted by facts that prevail locally. This approach, it is urged, is preferable to formal theories of induction in which the good inductive inferences are delineated as those conforming to some universal schema. An inductive inference problem concerning indeterministic, non-probabilistic systems in physics is posed and it is argued that Bayesians cannot responsibly analyze it, thereby demonstrating that the probability calculus is not the universal logic of induction. "There are No Universal Rules for Induction," Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science, 77 (2010) pp. 765-77. Download