Problems with Kierkegaard

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
41

There is, and you are drowning in it.

Correct.

Then my induction at time B is only probable, because at time B I used induction to assume that the original induction actually happened. If this is the case, it is possible that the proposition at time A was not an induction and logically determined.

Again, I am assuming that I assumed in the past that an event would happen. If inductions are only always assumptions, it is possible that I might be wrong at time B when refering to time A. Forget about the contents of the proposition. The method remains the same and refers to itself in order to assume itself in the past. Yes, it works backwards as well.

  1. 99 times I commited an induction fallacy.

  2. It cannot be proven that I will commit an induction fallacy one more time, based on past experiences.

  3. Number 2 is an induction fallacy because I just might and it is at least probable.

  4. Therefore, number 3. is a deduction, not an induction; I cannot probably be probable because an induction of an induction of an induction…ad infinitem.

Nevermind man. You may have the last word.

42

The problem with Kierkegaard is that he gives us absolutely no clue about how to get along better and so reintroducing his ‘bones’ just gives us another reason to fight.

43

Imp, what does this statement mean to you:

That induction is always a fallacy, is an induction fallacy.

Induction: assumption made about future states based from an experience of past states.

Deduction: assumption made from present known facts about a future state.

The difference here is that the induction works with what is suspected to happen by what has happened. Deduction works with what is suspected to happen by accounting what is happening.

If it is happening that I am commiting an induction fallacy, it can only be deduced that the induction fallacy is false, it cannot be induced. If at time A I predicted an event, and then at time B refered to my previous prediction, despite whether or not I was correct about it, I cannot simply commit another induction and say “inductions are sometimes right, sometimes wrong,” because I would be commiting it again and I would be reduced to nonsense.

The logical connection of propositions in time rely on the deductive reasoning that what was expected during an induction if proof that at least one thing is always true: the induction fallacy.

But this cannot be true, because if it is, it might be false.

Holy shit, I think I just discovered something heavy here man. Did I just beat the David Hume? I gotta go. I’m calling Wittgenstein right away. Shit. Wittgenstein is dead. Fuck it. I’ll call Rorty.

44

call him up and he’ll have a good chuckle at your deductions about induction…

-Imp

45

I’m sorry, Impenitent, but your post is an enormous induction fallacy, and I will have nothing to do with such nonsense.

Good day.

46

between this and the rest of what you have posted you have only revealed that you are having dificulty with a priori and a posteriori.

stated simply, Hume pointed out, correctly, that “post reasoning” is not sufficient for causation. He’s right and he does not “refute himself.”

However, most of what you and Imp have posted is irrelevant, because the scientific method is really about testing for positive correlation, and then what role that plays in making claims about causation based on the data.

As for the acutal topic, Kierkegaard’s either/or is a false dichotomy presented only in order to justify the leap of faith. Talk about begging the question…

:laughing:

47

Not at all. Those two forms of reasoning have nothing to do whatsoever with my point.

A priori knowledge is “prior” to experience, and in epistemology it serves only make premises tautological…to make them redundent and carry their own definition. Example: all circles are round. I know the shape of the circle because “circular” is a shape. Posteriori knowledge is gained from experience. Example: this circle is blue. Not all circles are blue, so I would have to experience a blue circle to know it existed, while I need not experience a round circle to know a circle existed.

I would hope not, unless you experience time backwards. I think you are mistaking a cause for an effect, since what happens post hoc can certainly not be a cause.

My point is that there is just as much of a chance that applying an induction fallacy is an induction fallacy itself. 99 sunrises and 99 inductions fallacies don’t provide proof that there will be 100 of them the next time a prediction is made. This is similiar to David Stove’s refutation using deductivism and “sub-set” examples to refute Hume.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stove

Again, I can necessarily deduce from an induction fallacy at time A (the sun will rise tomorrow) that at time B it logically follows that, according to the induction fallacy itself, either I deduce that at time A I commited a fallacy (posteriori), or I commit another induction fallacy at time B and assume that I have had only a probable experience of the fallacy at time A.

No, it is certain that I commited the fallacy at time A, not probable. Now, what if I repeat this process ad infinitem? Can I therefore deduce prior to experience that the induction fallacy is not a fallacy at all?

A might not cause B, but it did.
B might not cause C, but it did.
C might not cause D, but it did.
Etc., etc.

“The situation would be analogous to drawing a ball out of a barrel of balls, 99% of which are red. In such a case you have a 99% chance of drawing a red ball. Similarly, when getting a sample of ravens the probability is very high that the sample is one of the matching or ‘representative’ ones. So as long as you have no reason to think that your sample is one unrepresentative you are justified in thinking that probably (although not certainly) that it is.” (from the link)

If I have reason to believe that D will cause E, based on past experience, then I also have reason to believe that the induction fallacies were not fallacies at all, because they were as probable as the sequence A>B>C>D.

Therefore it is just as probable that at any time an induction is not a fallacy, because it is not erroneous to assume prior to experience a likelyhood of events, be it induction or deduction.

And even that statement is an induction fallacy, because an effect is never “probable,” it is determined and necessary…only we cannot observe an outcome of causal influences in the future.

48

You are over thinking the point, and using a bad example.

First off, the sun “might not rise” would be a negative, and this could not be assumed or tested. One cannot prove a negative! The point is that while it is a priori that the sun has risen in the recent past [we can see and experience the effects of the sun’s previous visits], there is no sufficient reason to believe it will rise tommorow because of this.

Deduction supports what has happened, but it would be the inductive fallacy to conclude that it will happen again.

The point is that he is an empiricist, and thus without experience we cannot claim to know anything. So, the point about “we cannot experience the future” calls into question only the certainty of effect, not of the causality.

Deduction is simple, induction is thusly both a higher pursuit and at the same time the more fallible. Just be careful about what one claims…

Your argument about Hume being succeptable to his own fallacy makes no sense to me whatsoever.

49

Imp,
It was you, who, like Kierkegaard, places an undue moral value on science without making the distinction between science as ameliation of the human condition and science as a power play among weapons mongers.
more or less,
Do we really need more Kantian Alice in Wonderland houses of cards in order to deal with the fact that we are in and of matter.
Detrop and Nihilistic,
There is no way you can convince anyone who has opted for a self-affirming absolute that there may be a possibility of existence in flux.

50

I was under the impression this thread was about Hume and Kierkegaard.

That you don’t understand either/or and the leap of faith goes some measure to explain why you are confused about Christian existentialism in the first place.

51

-Imp

52

You know what I meant. Quit picking on minor mistakes just to hear yourself talk.

I can take anything apart and send you running to your mother. I will on this occasion, although I support empiricism for pragmatic reasons, make Hume appear as an idealist. That’s right. Now watch me work.

Then there is no sufficient reason to believe that the tree is falling in the forest without my being there to hear it, even if it has happened 99 times in the past. This implies that reality is not “sensory data” but rather “ideas” generated in the mind and independent from experience.

Part of the tradition of empiricism is the assumption that the world is objective and exists independently of our experience. The only alternative to this is the assumption that we must experience an event to prove it has happened. This is contradictory to empiricism proper.

Furthermore, there is no sufficient reason to believe that an induction fallacy actually exists since I cannot prove that the idea I am commiting the fallacy against is real and not a figment of my imagination.

If Hume is not baking in David’s stove, he sure as hell is baking in mine.

Refute my claim that proof of experience requires deductive reasoning and knowledge and that the induction fallacy, for failure to provide sufficient means of certainty that “the tree is there and is falling without my witness,” is neither here nor there as a useful way to be sure of any experience whatsoever other than what is believed to be “real” in the mind.

Then go to sleep, and commit an induction fallacy in your dream and you’ll really be in for some good philosophy.

53

And what is this problem with Kierkegaard? What about Either/Or?

The book, although I haven’t read the whole thing, is not explicitly about his religious beliefs. What he means to show is the anxiety experienced in making decisions in life and the looming sense of absurdity regarding the faith that one has chosen rightly. The subject for Kierkegaard was “negative freedom,” and this is a freedom that is not, ironically, something celebrated, according to K. What struck him as absurd, for example, was the simple fact that there was nothing stopping him from jumping off a cliff, if he decided to do so. This anxiety, which he called " the dizziness of freedom," was a trademark signature of existentialism.

“My advice is this; do either/or…you will regret both.”- Kierkegaard

I guess you can link the theme to his religious import but I’m saying it is not exclusive to that alone.

54

I may have mispoke/typed slightly, but again your over thinking the point. There may be sufficent reason for predicatbility, but not necessary reason.

Again, an empricist cannot have knowledge of the future. It’s just that simple, based on the empricists claim of what knowledge is. This is the essence of the Humean induction fallacy.

There is a secondary issue with causation, where in Hume suggests we often cannot claim to “know” the relation of the cause to the effect.

Like I said, common sense dictates the positive correlation is statistically good enough. The problem lies in “proof” and “knowledge” as they relate to claims predicated on prior experience or on empirical data.

Data cannot tell one what will, necessarily, happen. It can only inform what will most likely happen, within a margin of error. It is not “proof” or empirical knowledge until it is experienced, thus the fallacy of induction. A sample is not the whole, nor the can it “predict” the future with certainty.

If one is not certain, one cannot claim it as knowledge.

I honestly don’t understand what your confusion over this is, it’s quite simple really.

55

also, the point about the tree falling is that it does not make a sound. If no one experiences sound, does sound really exist?

The point being that sound is the subjective experience of the observer. Without the observer, it is merely energy waves that go unexperienced.

Sound is how the observer experiences that tree that is assumed to have fallen.

No observer, no sound is heard.

Do you claim that sound still meaningfully exists without it being experienced?

Can you claim to know it will also not be heard tomorrow? :wink:

56

Hi Ierrellus and all.

As a self-proclaimed Existential-Thomist I enjoy both wondering about both known universals
as well as our personal lives and meanings. I do not accept Hume on causality. I do accept man as subject.

mrn, troll

57

I’d like to return to consider this post, as it was perhaps at the height of the argument:

Actually, as I understand it Kierkegaard goes beyond Either/Or in his later work. We have the option of Aesthetic, Moral, or the religious leap – in a line of phases.

Why can’t the subjective be absolute inso far as they are personal, internal experiences – especially if these discoveries are shared with others?

58

more or less’
Yes, this thread is about Kierkegaard and the issues his philosophy raises. (from his readings of Hume, Kant, Hegel, etc.) I’ve read much of his writings and have come to the conclusion that they amount to a single philosophic error–that there is a subjective absolute. If you are able to convey your subjective understandings to me in a way in which I can understand them, your understandings are not confined to your own subjectivity. One falls into error by asserting that there exists ultimate moral laws which anyone can understand and can communicate. Our existential distresses come from each person’s realization that no such universals exist. Moral law is social housekeeping. It has nothing to do with individuals facing some mythological diety with corruption on their souls. Either/or excludes the third choice, the only choice that would entail any sort of human freedom to choose. Esthetics may be the root cause of ethics, not some conflicting, whole other form of awareness.

59

[Edit]

I thought the Aesthetic was prior in experience to the Ethical which was prior to the Religious. Steps.

As to the subjective absolute, doesn’t literature do this – ask us to feel for another in the story and empathise with what is personally in common with the author’s thought? If there were no universal moral laws, would literature make any sense?

60

Semantics. Then there shouldn’t be “sufficient reason” for predictability. It is the predictability that provides for the reason. While you cannot say “my experience of the sun rising these last 99 days will be the cause of it rising again tomorrow, if it does…” you must say “the reason why I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow is because it has the last 99 days.”

But I agree with the rest of your post. Still I can toy with the idea, yet this seems to be only the result of playing with words. For example, I could maintain that suspecting the bathroom is around the corner is an induction fallacy, because despite it being there every time I walked around the corner, I cannot prove it will be there again until I experience it. This famous induction fallacy can be stretched to absurd conclusions. I think the opening statement on Stove’s page, calling the fallacy responsible for this “nervousness” in epistemology, is very appropriate. But it helped in the war against idealism, I guess, which was a step in the right direction for combatting ruling class “a priori” ideas and metaphysics.

Just don’t let anyone know Hume can be called an idealist with a few tweaks in the argument. That would foil everything. Pretend like I didn’t say anything. Just ignore my last few posts.