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Details
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Supper Talk with Dr. John McCaskey on "Aristotle on Induction: The Poor Guy Was Just Misunderstood"
Date: Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Time: 6:30 pm social hour, 7:15 pm dinner, 8:15 pm talk
Location: West Woods Golf Club, 6655 Quaker Street in Arvada, Colorado
Cost: $55.00 per individual, $30.00 for students
RSVP by March 25th to Lin Zinser via e-mail (lin@zinser.com) or phone (303.431.2525). Please send your check to FROST c/o Lin Zinser, 8700 Dover Court, Arvada, CO 80005.
 One of the most recalcitrant issues in philosophy is the problem of induction: Given something is true of some, when can we know it is true of all? The issue is, of course, not new.
The concept of induction goes back to Aristotle who said he got it from Socrates. Indeed, everyone who has dealt with induction has worked from what Aristotle wrote. But, it turns out, the poor guy was misunderstood. In this talk, Dr. McCaskey will use the history of induction from Socrates to modern times to show what can happen as a philosophic idea gets transmitted, altered, misunderstood, transcribed, translated, reinterpreted, lost, rediscovered, buried, dug up, ravaged by mold, eaten by worms, burned, mutilated, and spindled as it passes from generation to generation.
We'll visit Socrates and Cicero, Baghdad and Alexandria, medieval universities and Victorian England. In the process, we'll gain a new appreciation for the grand sweep of the history of Western philosophy and gain new perspectives on that philosophy's thorny problem of induction.
Dr. McCaskey studies and teaches history and philosophy of science at Stanford University where he earned his PhD in 2006. His most recent writing is on induction in Aristotle's Prior Analytics B 23 (Apeiron, 2008 forthcoming). He also is the Founder and President of the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship.
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