Background
Braithwaite, Richard Bevan was born on January 15, 1900 in Banbury, England.
Braithwaite, Richard Bevan was born on January 15, 1900 in Banbury, England.
Studied at king's College, Cambridge from 1919 (Fellow '924. Manuscripts and Archives 1926). bids: J. M. Keynes, Heinrich Hertz, Bain. N. R. Campbell, W. E. Johnson, Peirce, Wittgenstein, M. Arnold, von Neumann, Morgenstern and Raida.
Lectureship, 1928-1934, Sidgwick Lectureship, 1934-1953, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy, 1953-1967, University of Cambridge. Visiting Professor at ■Johns Hopkins University, 1968, at University of Western Ontario, 1969. and at City University of New York, 1970. FBA. 1957; Honorary DLitt.
Bristol, 1963; Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1986.
Braithwaite’s main work lies in the philosophy of science and decision theory, both of which he links with ethics. In particular he emphasizes the role of deductive systems. Braithwaite relates models and theories so that a theory and its corresponding model are deductive systems interpreting the same abstract calculus, but in the model the initial formulae, containing theoretical terms for unobservables, are epistemologically prior to the derived formulae, containing terms for observables, while in the theory they are epistemologically posterior. We have some choice about which theories to adopt, but theories are true propositions and not mere rules of inference. On probability Braithwaite develops a version of the frequency view, though without appeal to limiting frequencies. The meaning of probability statements is given in terms of rules for rejecting them, which involve a complex sampling procedure. But their rejection is always revisable by reference to higher-order sampling procedures applied to the sampling procedures themselves. If the hypothesized probability is in fact correct, and our mistaken rejection of it based on a deviant sample, this fact will show itself when we sample the set of possible samples from which the deviant sample was taken. Despite this Popperian emphasis on rejections Braithwaite does not share Popper’s scepticism about induction, which he thinks, following Peirce, can be self-supporting without circularity. This has not generally convinced later writers, who see more value in his offering a criterion for confirming statistical, and not just universal, hypotheses, where his introduction of pragmatic or value elements shows the link with ethics but has been criticized. The emphasis on deductive systems reappears in Braithwaite’s analysis of natural laws. These involve only Humean regularities and no ‘metaphysical’ necessity, but owe their status to the explanatory power they gain from being deduced within a system from premises resting on inductive evidence that goes beyond the direct evidence for the laws themselves. The apparent paradox that the top-level premises are themselves not laws is defused by reflecting that explanation must stop somewhere. An Empiricist’s Vie if (1955) achieved a certain succès de scandale by basing on Matthew Arnold an ultra-Wittgenistenian reduction of religious beliefs to certain intentions, supported by stories.