Hume again

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I wanted to respond to the Hume thread below, but it took too many twists and turns for me to follow. Hume did away with Causality, but not with causes and effects. The “problem” with induction can be stated this way -

The premises that we use in a deductive argument about the empirical world are invariably arrived at by induction. These premises cannot be considered infallible, for reasons that anyone with a cursory knowledge of Hume knows - I shant rehearse his argument here. So, we are left with probabilities. These probabilities do have predictive power, but cannot be considered infallible.

It’s all about infallibility. That is an adjective (okay, I just used the noun form, but stay with me) that can only be rightly used if Causality, as a general and true principle under which the universe operates, obtains. But Causality has a problem of its own. If everything is caused, then so must causality itself be caused. Gravity has a cause, after all.

Hume’s problem, the problem he devoted his life’s work to, was that he believed that God was impossible. He did not vanquish causes and effects - only Causality. He showed that God was impossible. That’s what he was all about. He was correct.

Induction “works” because it’s all we’ve got. Causes and effects exist - we can see them every day. Hume went a bit far here, but remember that when he says there is no obsevable mechanism for cause and effect, he was living in a mechanistsic universe - he was fighting the mechanistic concept of a created universe. There is no mechanism because cause and effect is simply an event, not a thing. It’s two things. But to Hume, this question must be answered in another way. But it was the same answer to Hume as it is to me, in the end - no mechanism.

It’s part of the philosopher’s disease to seek certainty. It surely obtains where there is God. For the rest of us, Hume’s problem is, indeed, a small one. But those who do not seek certainty are a very small minority. Hume remains a problem for all the rest. Because he is essentially correct.

For the record, I “know” that the sun will rise tomorrow. It’s all that the word “know” means in a godless universe. Hume’s thought must always be considered in the context of a man who wished to find a way to express his atheism, and get away with it. He did get away with it, by the way.

Faust

2

nice explaination…

but you need to be careful positing metaphysical things (language) on the physical (empirically derived) events… (and this takes hume to the next step)

Cause and effect.— “Explanation” is what we call it: but it is “description” that distinguishes us from older stages of knowledge and science. Our descriptions are better—we do not explain any more than our predecessors. We have uncovered a manifold one-after-another where the naive man and inquirer of older cultures saw only two separate things, “cause” and “effect” as the saying goes; but we have merely perfected the image of becoming without reaching beyond the image or behind it. In every case the series of “causes” confronts us much more completely, and we infer: first, this and that has to precede in order that this or that may then follow—but this does not involve any comprehension. In every chemical process, for example, quality appears as a “miracle,” as ever; also, every locomotion; nobody has “explained” a push. But how could we possibly explain anything! We operate only with things that do not exist: lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time spans, divisible spaces—, how should explanations be at all possible when we first turn everything into an image, our image! It will do to consider science as an attempt to humanize things as faithfully as possible; as we describe things and their one-after-another, we learn how to describe ourselves more and more precisely. Cause and effect: such a duality probably never exists,—in truth we are confronted by a continuum out of which we isolate a couple of pieces, just as we perceive motion only as isolated points and then infer it without ever actually seeing it. The suddenness with which many effects stand out misleads us; actually, it is sudden only for us. In this moment of suddenness there is an infinite number of processes that elude us. An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment—would repudiate the concept of cause and effect and deny all conditionality. (Nietzsche GS)

-Imp

3

Hi, Imp. Coming from you, that is a compliment, indeed. Thank you.

4

Imp - this is so typically Nietzsche - the man who made a career out of description - who saw philosophy as well as science as description. I agree with him, of course. Yours is a worthy caveat - but language is always a snapshot - it’s job is to freeze time. Which is why so many have trouble with the concept of time. I’m not sure how careful I can be here - I am perfectly comfortable with the effect that language has on perception. But every statement need not be self-reflective. My comments can be seen within the context that language is not “real”. I never worry that I do not know the thing-in-itself. I understand, however, that those who seek the thing-in-itself may not understand what I say. You know how unphilosophical I am in this regard.

5

I made a clarification to my old hume thread which you may or may not have been referencing here. I suggest the problem with induction is simply that hume ignores the other types of necessity that govern the real world. There are clearly some good example of induction, but with many examples of ‘the problem of induction’ at work, once these other necessities are allowed for, the problem no longer exists.

6

Obie - I read your last post in that thread, and your post here, and I still don’t know what you’re talking about, mostly because you won’t say. There are well over a zillion “examples” of induction. That induction “exists” is not at issue, I hope. We can induct. Induce. Inductify. You know what I mean. The “problem” (if 'm not going out on a limb) is really with the certainty of knowledge, and the possibility thereof.

What are thes other “necessities”? Just spell it out, please.

f

7

Ok I will certainly try again - as with the majority of my posts, it is made in good faith and with the aim being actual progress on the issue.

The first point to take on board is that there are good and bad examples of induction - which all tend to get grouped together under the banner of ‘induction’.

I am looking into this with the idea that the problem that truth is not properly inferred from premises to conclusion in an inductive argument is a false problem. The problem of induction would state that we cannot reliably know that a loaf of bread will sustain us tomorrow thanks to me having experienced many examples of it doing so previously. I think this is a false problem because there are other types of necessity in the world that govern whether or not a loaf of bread will sustain us - necessities that the problem would ignore.

Conversely, an inductive argument that I have a bag of marbles, and I have pulled out 20 red marbles, therefore the next marble will be red, is a good example of the problem of induction being used correctly. However those who are trouble by the problem of induction allow it to trouble them in arguments like the bread argument instead of the kinds of argument where it does apply - such as the marble argument. In essence, both are induction, but they are very different and the problem does not apply to both thanks to physical necessities and natural laws such as principles of physiology that require a loaf of bread to always sustain my body.

In my thread, imp and I got hung up on trying to define the problem of induction and I could not get imp away from the idea that I was trying to solve induction with the natural law premise included, which is only the case when one tries to convert an inductive argument into a deductive argument (ironically another form of dealing with the problem).

/with all errors.

8

obie, the point Hume makes is not whether the bread will sustain you, or even if there is some law that determines this. It’s whether or not you know this, or can know it. Did God tell you about these laws? Or did we discover them? If we discovered them, it was by induction, since there was never any first, unmoveable principle from which to deduce them. That first principle could only be God. This is Hume backwards, but I thought I’d try it, since stating Hume forwards didn’t seem to impress you.

f

9

How does the idea that logic is not the only necessity that governs our world fit with you?

10

It sits up my sleeve, as with all useful get out clauses. Sure, logic is still a game being played by certain rules. If you’ve got another form of necessity lined up then by all means put it on the table and watch me and Imp fight with each other over why it’s flawed…
:evilfun:

11

obw - I think you havemade a meaningless statement. What governs our world? Logic does not govern or world. Govern? What does that mean? I still don’t know what you are talking about? What is the necessity that you speak of? Spit it out.

12

Well, precisely, really. You must understand that Hume was desperate to fit the world into his logic and not the other way around. Very specifically - there is a physiological necessity for bread to sustain our bodies tomorrow as it did today - so the argument that we have noticed bread to sustain our bodies and it will do so tomorrow does not suffer the problem of induction because it does not rely upon logical necessity alone, unlike an argument that all swans are white because all observed swans are white. There is no extra necessity for swans to be white.

So I am suggesting we are making a fundamental error in applying the problem of induction to all examples of the inductive argument.

13

Most people believe in metaphysical certitudes. That’s what Hume was replying to. That’s the context of his writing. I can only repeat much of what I said in my original post. Hume used physics to illustrate his point about metaphysics. It was never about physics. Everyone lives by induction - Hume never argued that point. It was about God. How can your physical necessities prove God? More to the point - the real question - how can they allow God? Everything else is just a detail.

14

Hm… two points though:

  1. Although important, context is irrelevant to an investigation of a particular argument - otherwise ad hominem to a degree.

  2. As if in contradiction to my above point- It’s incorrect to state that anybody knows for sure if Hume was or was not trying to do away with God. The Hume scholars do not agree.

15

Obw - I don’t care what “Hume scholars” think. It’s plain as day. And I disagree that context is irrelevant. Context is everything. There is nothing of an ad hominem in this. Philosophy that has no context is just bad philosophy. We live in the world. I’m beginning to think you are a rationalist. Partly because rationalists are usually excruciatingly slow about exposing their arguments. Most importantly, every argument has a purpose. Philosophers can be a sneaky bunch. Their purposes are not always apparent. Knowing the context does not change the logic - I don’t mean to suggest this. But the purpose of a given argument must be known for the argument to be understood. You don’t need to be a philosopher, or a student, to know this.

f

16

I’m not a rationalist. Sorry Faust but I just cannot agree that we can be sure of what Hume was trying to do with regards to God. Plenty of people are sure, though.

Shall we contain it all in the other thread to save taking up space?

17

Sure. I shouldn’t have started this thread, but my brain was fried reading the other one. I didn’t even know who I was responding to. Maybe they sould just take this one down.