 Formal learning theory can be regarded as a kind of extension of the Reichenbachian programme. It does not offer justifications for inductive inferences in the sense of giving reasons why they should be taken as likely to provide a true conclusion. Rather it offers a “means-ends” epistemology -- it provides reasons for following particular methods based on their optimality in achieving certain desirable epistemic ends, even if there is no guarantee that at any given stage of inquiry the results they produce are at all close to the truth (Schulte 1999).