In this we essay will briefly look at the differences between induction and deduction. We will then examine Hume’s problem of induction and popular approaches to solving the problem. Finally we will consider whether Hume’s problem warrants our concern, does scientific advancement require induction to proceed or does it proceed deductively?
A deductive argument is ‘truth tropic’-it leads us to true conclusions. Deductive arguments are ones where the premises entail the conclusion; as a result, it is logically impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. Thus deduction is truth preserving, if the premises are true, you can guarantee that the conclusion is also true. In this essay, all other forms of inferences that are non-deductive will be called inductive inferences. Consider the following argument: “all observed Emus are flightless, therefore, all Emus are Flightless.” Clearly this argument is not deductive since the truth of the premise does not necessarily entail the truth of the conclusion. In fact, it is entirely possible, though non likely, that the premise is true and the conclusion be proven false due to the existence of an unobserved Emu which is not flightless. However, it seems as thought this type of reasoning is plausible and even reliable if we ensure that the sample of observed Emus is sufficiently large and representative. Meaning that the Emus have been observed in a variety of locations over a long period of time. Thus induction is matter of “weighing evidence and judging probability not of proof”. It is clear that induction plays a crucial role in the advancement of scientific theories, however is it possible to justify inductive inferences and if so, how should we go about doing thi...
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...fend his theory against refutation. Should his theory been refuted? Furthermore, how can we identify a true falsifier as opposed to falsifiable falsifier? Since falsifiable falsifier can loom over theories for as long as decades, perhaps pseudoscientific theories such as Marxism and Freudianism are only temporarily unable to explain their falsifiers? The problem of the falsifiable falsifier poses some serious questions that could undermine Falsificationism.
To conclude, in this essay we briefly looked at the differences between induction and deduction. Then we examined Hume’s problem of induction along with two attempts at solving the problem of induction. Neither seemed to provide a clear solution. Then we questioned whether it was possible to live with Hume’s problem of induction by examining the theory of falsificationism, and the problems that lie in the theory.
David Hume was a British empiricist, meaning he believed all knowledge comes through the senses. He argued against the existence of innate ideas, stating that humans have knowledge only of things which they directly experience. These claims have a major impact on his argument against the existence of miracles, and in this essay I will explain and critically evaluate this argument.
...w. There is nothing enabling a scientist to say that induction is a suitable arrangement of evidence in which there is no way to account for the evidence, therefor being no liability in using induction to verify the statement.
The figure of David Hume looms large in the philosophical tradition of English-speaking countries; and his two famous analyses, of human apprehension and of causality, were the...
Hume was an empiricist and a skeptic who believes in mainly the same ideals as Berkeley does, minus Berkeley’s belief in God, and looks more closely at the relations between experience and cause effect. Hume’s epistemological argument is that casual
Regardless of the disagreement between both schools of philosophy that Rene Descartes and David Hume founded, Descartes’s rationalism and Hume’s empiricism set the tone for skepticism regarding knowledge. Rene Descartes rationalism served to form a solid foundation for true knowledge. Although Descartes reaches an illogical conclusion, his rationalism was meant to solve life’s problem by trusting and using the mind. David Hume’s empiricism serves to be the true blueprint on how humans experience the mind. Hume’s empiricism shows that the world only observes the world through their own sense and that there are no a priori truths. For that reason it became clearer that David Hume’s empiricism explains and demonstrates that it is the better way
Even with the problem of induction, we are still justified to conclude that all emeralds are green. Either out of common sense, or due to certain constraints the “grue” hypothesis has, we find the induction that concludes that all emeralds are green more compelling.
Almost all epistemologists, since Edmund Gettier’s 1963 article, have agreed that he disproved the justified-true-belief conception of knowledge. He proposed two examples
In this paper I will look at David Hume’s (1711-1776) discussion from the An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Of Miracles regarding whether it is a reasonable assumption to believe in the existence of miracles. I will first discuss why the existence of miracles matters and how miracles relate to our understanding of the laws of nature. Secondly, I will look at how Hume argues that it is never reasonable to believe in miracles. I will then provide objections to this argument which I feel support the idea that belief is not only reasonable but a necessary condition for a faithful life.
Kant found many problems within Hume’s account. Through his endeavors to prove that metaphysics is possible, and his analyzing of causality, Kant solved the problems he saw within Hume’s account. Specifically, in the Prolegomena, Kant stated that Hume “justly maintains that we cannot comprehend by reason the possibility of causality.”(57) Kant also attacked Hume’s ideas by describing Hume’s treatment of the concept of causality to be “a bastard of the imagination, impregnated by experience.”(5) Kant succeeded in re- establishing the objectivity of causality, a task that Hume had rejected as impossible.
John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), was first criticized by the philosopher and theologian, John Norris of Bemerton, in his "Cursory Reflections upon a Book Call'd, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," and appended to his Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes (1690). Norris's criticisms of Locke prompted three replies, which were only posthumously published. Locke has been viewed, historically, as the winner of this debate; however, new evidence has emerged which suggests that Norris's argument against the foundation of knowledge in sense-perception that the Essay advocated was a valid and worthy critique, which Locke did, in fact, take rather seriously. Charlotte Johnston's "Locke's Examination of Malebranche and John Norris" (1958), has been widely accepted as conclusively showing that Locke's replies were not philosophical, but rather personal in origin; her essay, however, overlooks critical facts that undermine her subjective analysis of Locke's stance in relation to Norris's criticisms of the Essay. This paper provides those facts, revealing the philosophical—not personal—impetus for Locke's replies.
Hume draws upon the idea of building knowledge from experiences and introduces the concept of ca...
In the selection, ‘Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding’, David Hume poses a problem for knowledge about the world. This question is related to the problem of induction. David Hume was one of the first who decided to analyze this problem. He starts the selection by providing his form of dividing the human knowledge, and later discusses reasoning and its dependence on experience. Hume states that people believe that the future will resemble the past, but we have no evidence to support this belief. In this paper, I will clarify the forms of knowledge and reasoning and examine Hume’s problem of induction, which is a challenge to Justified True Belief account because we lack a justification for our beliefs.
As a result of his previous focus on necessity in section VII, Hume’s tactic in this section is to repeat his thoughts on the nature of necessity. He begins by examining “what we are pleased to call physical necessity,” (Hume 526) and try to present an argument of how human actions are necessary (i.e. causally determined). According to Hume, there are laws in nature that are “actuated by necessary forces and that every natural effect is so precisely determined by the energy of its cause that no other effect, in such a particular circumstances, could possibly have resulted from it” (Hume 523). Hume a...
In this book, Samir Okasha kick off by shortly describing the history of science. Thereafter, he moves on scientific reasoning, and provide explanation of the distinction between inductive and deductive reasoning. An important point Samir makes, is the faith that humans put into the inductive reasoning
Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) Critique of Pure Reason is held universally as a watershed regarding epistemology and metaphysics. There have been anticipations regarding the notion of the analytic especially in Hume. The specific terms analytic and synthetic were first introduced by Kant at the beginning of his Critique of Pure Reason book. The mistake that metaphysicians made was viewing mathematical judgments as being “analytic”. Kant came up with a description for analytic judgments as one that is merely elucidatory, that is, what is implicit is transformed into explicit. Kant’s examples utilize the judgments of subjects or rather predicates, for instance the square has four sides. The predicates content is always already accounted for in