Hume's non-problem of Induction?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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(sigh) Hopefully you understand my meaning when I say that religion doesn’t accomplish anything tangible. Religion affects human motivation and human perception, but it doesn’t yield a new skill; it doesn’t have predictive power (despite all those who argue to the contrary), and it doesn’t have any scientific explanatory power (although it has plenty of non-scientific explanatory power).

The scientific method is NOT a logical error. Causality is not only something observable, it is something that can be precisely and mathematically (and thus philosophically) defined.

Even if the scientific method IS a logical error - which you will have a very very difficult time arguing - it STILL has given us more results than any other approach to knowledge and truth IN HISTORY. Almost every modern convenience we have now owes its existence in part to the scientific method.

Truth isn’t an assumed agreement. It has a precise definition in our universe. There are statements that are true or false independent of the observer. These are the statements that comprise the system of our universe.

“If you assume it is nothing, it is…”

I have no idea what you mean here. You need axioms (initial assumptions) to make any truth system work. If you have no axioms, you can’t have any conclusions.

And lastly… existence isn’t necessarily one of those assumptions at all. It really depends on what kind of existence you mean. Human existence is a consequence of those axioms, not an axiom itself. We can observe that humans exist, therefore they do. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but all you need do is fill in the gaps with the axioms of “Occam’s Razor” and “The Axiom of Induction” and so on, and you’re set.

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only to be complicated by the axiom of errors…

-Imp

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Incase you had not noticed, Imp is a radical skeptic. Although I somehow reckon you don’t live your life in tune with your philosophy, Imp.

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ROFL

I would hope not.

I’ve been steadily checking this thread btw… I wish some other people would comment on this topic as, like ob 1 said initially… Induction is something that seems to hang onto attention and curiosity - a plague of contentment.

Sadly I’ve given it quite a bit of thought and I’m not analytical enough to dive into this metaphysical whirlpool and come out with anything readible.

So… yeah, pointless post here by me.

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your initial discussion of premises and conclusion is actually both completely wrong, induction is a form of argumentation its parallel (or some would like it to be) to deduction. its a form of argumentation. Hume’s problem is that the form of argumentation maybe flawed that we mistakenly make the move from the paticular to the general, there is no logical necessity flowing from a finite set of observations to a general principle.

Personally I like Goodmans response to this issue, read Fact, Fiction and Forecast if you havn’t its short and provides a good insight on the subject.

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Imp,

Your responses to most of my points suggest that you aren’t understanding them in the way in which I intended them.

For example, I never claimed that “mathematics are observed”, and if anywhere I said anything that could be related to that conjecture, it certainly wasn’t in the line you quoted, where I say that causality can be mathematically defined.

Perhaps we should call it a draw, eh, old boy?

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Yes, exactly - and my opening post alleges that this problem rests (‘reduces to’) two very particular points as I outline - what do you think about them? .

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call it a draw if you like, but I was highlighting the difference between observed empirical events and the metaphysical language and mathematical systems one uses to describe them. causality is defined, not observed.

-Imp

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It was in some way my fault that I enlargened the spectre of induction beyond the delineated humean borders, to a point where, indeed, the border between two apparent different distinctions was unobservable.

It is wise, then, to mention between inductive reasoning, used in philosophy and logic, mathematical induction, electro-magnetic induction and the likes.

Let’s stick with Hume and his skepticism.

And your skepticism(s), for that matter.

I do not argue at the logical possibility of differently scaled universes, as general logics is not tangent in any strict way to the proper existence of things, but merely with the form and structure of any judgement . Possible is what concordes with the formal conditions of our experience. What limits possibilites is their materialization - real is what concordes with the material conditions of experience. (Kant)

But we are talking now of the world that we live in, as willing to offer itself to us as possible experience, a world where we have constructed the edifice of science, based on apodictical assertions (you may argue that, to no result, however). Mathematics is synthetic and a priori, therefore pure, and physics relies on experimental certainty and also deductive reasoning, interweaving itself with maths. As attractive as common folklore would appear, physics isn’t constructed merely by contemplating how apples fall from trees. For if experience teaches us laws that govern the existence of things, then these laws should apply outside our experience also.

Experience alone does not give us this privilege, though.

And this is where Kant and Hume bang head in head with each other. If we are to accept the unviolable universality of physics, then we must rely on a priorisms, which means bowing down to the spontaneity of our intellect in modelling the perceived world as according to its laws, by certain rules. It is only fair to acknowledge that, given the law of cause and effect and the principle of simultaneity by the law of reciprocal law that identical causes will cause symetrical effects. If, then, I perceived the sun rose up today at 6 or something and we know the trajectory it makes and the forces acting on it, then there’s no reason for me to doubt that it will be there tomorrow.

Or we could always call it “grue” and leave it to rest.

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Ok Imp I’ve got some more time now and I want to address your points about the nature of the problem.

Induction only begs the question, when you attempt to convert induction into deduction. In my original post, I should have made it clearer that I am not attempting to deal with this part of the problem - for I am not interested in solving how to turn induction into deduction via the implicit premise of natural law. I am saying - when you do not attempt to perform this magic conversion, you are left with the two underlying assumptions that the problem of induction (after you forget about trying to make induction deduction) rests upon.

And basically these two assumptions are not good enough - there are examples, such as the idea that a loaf of bread sustained my yesterday and I can predict it will sustian me tomorrow, that rest upon more than logical necessity.

Have I clarified my point?

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no, you only amplify the error of prediction (through induction) being anything but prediction… the only logical necessity there is an error…

an assumption of nourishment is the same as assuming the ball will move is the same as assuming anything. it is an assumption. it is based on assumption. there is no validly logical basis for the assumption.

science is an assumption

-Imp

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didn’t hume basically say, to put it really simply.
If I throw a ball at the window and the window breaks there is no evidence that one caused the other, or that if i were to repeat the action that the window would break a second time

or have I got myself confused?

sara

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yes, there is no necessary connection between events.
secondly, to claim that the window will break when you repeat the action because it had done so before begs the question and is an illogical assumption.

-Imp

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That’s what I thought, and obw had it backward because he’s saying that the problem of induction is when the premise is wrong the conclusion doesn’t follow, but Hume is actually saying that the premises stand but there’s no evidence for the conclusion, and that to suggest the the conclusion will always follow is wrong???

didn’t Hume use the problem to critique the cosmological argument for the existence of God? ie, there’s no evidence of causation anyway (so you can’t move from the fact that everything has a cause to the fact that the universe has a cause).

and didn’t elizabeth anscombe counter this with something about bunnies, ie. like baby bunnies usually appear as a result of adult bunnies mating, and it is completely illogical to think that tomorrow baby bunnies might just start appearing out of nowhere.

sorry i know that’s really crude unsophisticated philosopht… i’m tired, i’ll try and come up with some original quotes later…

sara

xxx

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sarax, you’ve got it. This was the point I was struggling to make in the seperate thread that I started. I know I shouldn’t have started a new thread, but I was lost in this one. The existence of God. That’s Hume’s real point. It’s all you really have to know about Hume.

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yay, I got something… so what was it you wanted to discuss in relation to hume and the existence of god, would you like to take it further?

I personally thing Hume’s most interesting contribution to the debate about the existence of God appears not in response to cosmological arguments, but instead to Descartes and his ‘doubt’ where he essentially says that Descartes is biased or preconditioned by his belief in God, and that if he truly truly had doubted everything, that nothing, least of all a belief in God would have caused him to come out of it.

(sorry that was put crudely again)

sara

xx

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Only what you have said - that Hume’s purpose, the use to which he put his thinking, and therefore the the context of his thinking, along with the larger context of the intellectual zeitgeist he was reacting to, was the existence of God, or how we can (cannot, that is) know of it. To understand any philosophy fully, look to the morality that it will and will not support. Philosophy is all about living “best” - the definition can be fluid - and some form of morality, even if it is of a purely personal type, is the most important element. This is true for every good philosopher, and Hume was one of the best. I say this not becasue I agree with him - I rank Hegel there, too, and no one could be more opposed to Hume than Hegel.

Oh, and as for Descartes - it’s all the same battle. It’s about God, and whoever has sought to prove Him true.

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yes, but Hume pretty much destroyed Descartes, and pretty succinctly too. I personally don’t like Hume, I think a lot of the time he’s just plain irrational, for example with the whole causation thing, but also I think he spends a lot of time criticising other people’s theories without ever providing something to stand in their place. But that’s just a kind of personality clash

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Imp, you’re absolutely crazy.

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huh? why is he crazy, is that not basically what Hume said, I thought it was…