W.V. Quine and J.S. Ullian, "Hypothesis"
1. According to Quine and Ullian, what we try to do when "framing" hypotheses is to
- (a) explain events by inventing a plausible story
- (b) explain events by deducing the hypothesis from some
more general law
- (c) explain events by generalization from observation
- (d) explain events by appeal to the beliefs of people
2. According to Quine and Ullian, conservative hypotheses
- (a) are the opposite of liberal hypotheses
- (b) are always true
- (c) always confict with our prior beliefs
- (d) conflict with as few as possible of our previous beliefs
3. According to Quine and Ullian, modest hypotheses
- (a) are always true
- (b) are better than conservative hypotheses
- (c) conflict as little as possible with our familiar
assumptions about the world
- (d) are the opposite of conservative hypotheses
4. According to Quine and Ullian, the preference for simple
hypotheses
- (a) reflects the simplicity of nature
- (b) limits our liability of being wrong when choosing new
hypotheses
- (c) can be justified mathematically
- (d) none of the above
5. According to Quine and Ullian, observation sentences are
- (a) descriptions of events or situations
- (b) sentences which can be learned by ostension
- (c) sentences which express beliefs which do not depend upon other beliefs
- (d) all of the above
6. According to Quine and Ullian, the truths of mathematics
- (a) are "self-evident"
- (b) can be deduced from "self-evident" axioms
- (c) can be deduced only from "hypotheses"
- (d) none of the above
7. According to Quine and Ullian, hypotheses which are
irrefutable
- (a) are the best kind
- (b) predict nothing and are confirmed by nothing
- (c) are useful
- (d) none of the above
8. According to Quine and Ullian, astrology is
- (a) irrefutable, and hence a good theory
- (b) irrefutable, and hence a bad theory
- (c) refutable but immodest
- (d) none of the above
9. According to Quine and Ullian, induction
- (a) is simply generalizing from observed cases to all cases
of the kind
- (b) gives rise to numerous paradoxes
- (c) is based on the expectation that the future will resemble
the past
- (d) all of the above
10. According to Quine and Ullian, the difference between induction and analogy is
- (a) analogy leaps from case to case; induction leaps from
cases to generalizations
- (b) analogy rests on intuition, induction does not
- (c) analogy is essentially deductive, induction is the
opposite of deduction
- (d) none of the above
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