We are pleased to announce that the Special Issue III of ABSTRACTA is now available at http://www.abstracta.pro.br/english/Default.asp. Our third Special Issue is dedicated to a symposium on Reliable Reasoning: Induction and Statistical Learning Theory (MIT Press, 2007) by Gilbert Harman and Sanjeev Kulkarni, both from Princeton University. We are proud to publish this critical discussion of such an important topic for philosophy of science in general (and of psychology, in particular) as well as contemporary epistemology.

In Reliable Reasoning Harman and Kulkarni take seriously the vexed philosophical problem of induction. They shed new light on it by proposing that philosophers can benefit from the application of statistical learning theory (and its mathematical framework) to approach that problem. As Harman and Kulkarni tell us in this symposium, their “intention in writing Reliable Reasoning was to suggest that basic statistical learning theory provides one sort of response to the traditional philosophical problem of induction, which asks what can be shown a priori about induction.”

Special Issue III – Table of Contents

• Editorial
• Gilbert Harman & Sanjeev Kulkarni: Precis of Reliable Reasoning: Induction and Statistical Learning Theory
• Glenn Shafer: Comments on Harman and Kulkarni’s Reliable Reasoning
• Paul Thagard: Inference to the Best Inductive Practices
• Michael Strevens: Remarks on Harman and Kulkarni’s Reliable Reasoning
• Stephen José Hanson: Commentary on Reliable Reasoning
• Gilbert Harman & Sanjeev Kulkarni: Response to Shafer, Thagard, Strevens and Hanson