Induction By David Hume

First, Scholars began to rely on the scientific method, a series of ordered questions and investigation, instead of former religious authorities. This systematic approach and questioning led to Descartes’s Deductive Reasoning, a logical process in which thinking progresses from the general to the specific, and Francis Bacon’s Inductive Reasoning, a logical process in which thinking

It has been many years, the foundation of all genuine knowledge, whether they are found on experience (empiricism) or they could simply gain from pure reasoning (rationalism) has been the subject of academic debate among scholars. However, we will only focus on the limitation of pure reasoning, compare both David Hume and Rene Descartes’ views of knowledge, and decide whose belief works better to attain genuine knowledge in this paper. In the book “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, David Hume specifically clarifies on how moral reasoning (induction) works in the knowledge of cause and effect and he shares on its limitation. Accordingly, he writes “[i]n reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity, which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such objects” (p. 23). Based upon his writing, Hume explains people tend to reason a particular instance and expect the future outcome depending on their past experiences; they make conclusions with inductive reasoning. However, the induction has the limitation because it doesn 't guarantee future instances will resemble previously observed ones.

Second, Hume has shown previously that it is the experience of a constant conjunction of impressions which leads us to infer causation. Here, Hume adds that it is constant inference of cause and effect (of “objects” on “our” senses, and “our” prior impressions on “our” future ones) which lead us to infer identity.

Hume says that the amount of belief in a claim should be the same as the amount of evidence. In cases where all evidence points to a conclusion, the conclusion is a law of nature. We are certain that these conclusions are correct. But, when there is evidence both for and against a claim, we can see this claim only has a small amount of credibility, as much as the evidence for it, outweighs the evidence against it.

In this passage, Hume purports two ways of coming to a rationally justified belief. The first is by means of infallible experience, that is, past experiences that are so certain to us that it would be unwise to dismiss them. For example, most people know that if you drop something, it will fall. They know this because every time they have dropped something or seen something dropped, it has fallen. This is the kind of knowledge Hume is indicating, a kind of personal experimentation that is closely related to the second method of rationally justifying a belief. That second method is a thorough weighing of evidence from as many relevant sources and experiments as possible. Hume emphasizes the importance of weighing both sides of an argument.

In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume explores the relationships between human experience, knowledge, and understanding. He clarifies that since humans have only their experience to base their understanding of reality on, experience creates the conception we have of the fundamental, natural rules that govern the world. He defines a “miracle” as an event that violates those “laws of nature”. Hume emphasizes that although a person’s testimony can be taken as a form of evidence for the occurrence of an event, in the case of miracles, testimony is deeply suspect and a person should almost never believe a miracle has occurred based on it. It is my belief that Hume’s argument is persuasive, and that the testimony that a miracle

In Section IV of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume, Hume provides argument that will outline that any conclusions about the future based on past experience are limited to being just probable suppositions, because all arguments that claim to know the future impacts of an object’s “secret powers” (Hume 21) are based in assumption. By “secret powers” (Hume 21), Hume means those abilities of an object, such as a loaf of bread, to “support… a human body.” (Hume 21) The bases for Hume’s claims are in the question he posits asking, “What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?” (Hume 20) In other words, Hume seeks to find the substance or grounding of conclusions that are formed

In this paper I will be utilizing Hume’s writings to point out his views and compare his views with Popper’s views on induction. The first thing I am going to be doing is clarifying the problem of induction that I will be discussing. Secondarily, Hume’s issues with induction will be outlined, and Popper’s proposed solution will be detailed. Finally, the assertions that I have made, and my views on both the issue and the solution is going to be explicitly laid out.

Hume lays the groundwork by saying that our commitment to our beliefs should be proportionate to the quality of evidence that supports that belief.3 Given any two conflicting beliefs, we should choose the belief that has the highest probability. For example, if there were

Inductive inferences are judgments about the future- that the sun will rise tomorrow, that the hot stove will burn me, that the (properly functioning) airplane will stay aloft, that the piece of metal will expand if heated. Hume observes that such judgments are neither matters of fact nor relations of ideas and so concludes that they are not proper objects of knowledge- we cannot claim to know that the sun will rise tomorrow, that the stove will burn me, etc. We can’t even claim to know these things are probable; inductive judgments appear not to be justified at all! But we make them all the time in everyday life, and scientific practice seems to be based on them. How are we to make sense of our inductive practices? Hume suggests that the answer lies in our psychology, that regularities in experience give rise to habits of expectation. Popper and Goodman both argue that Hume’s solution is problematic, that we cannot explain our inductive practices simply by appealing to habits of thought. Popper goes on to conclude that what we take to be inductive practice is really just a method of conjectures and refutations and Goodman goes on to posit his new riddle of induction; what they have in common, though, is a concern about Hume’s psychological solution to the riddle of induction.

The problem of induction lies in the justification of inductive methods. Induction takes a specific observation and turns it into a general theory. An example of this is: swan 1 is white, swan 2 is white, therefore all swans are white. Induction often argues that because something has been true in the past, it will be true in the future. However, by arguing that something has proven true in the past does not mean that it will be the same in the future. This problem of induction was pointed out by the philosopher David Hume. Hume's argument about the problem addresses two aspects of his epistemology, namely Relations of ideas and Matters of facts. Relations of ideas is simply the linking of our already existing ideas and is confined to our

David Hume asserts that the grounds upon which connections between causes and effects are established are not rooted in reason. Hume argues that while reason does play a large role in understanding rational relations of ideas, the same principles cannot apply to matters of fact. He justifies this claim with the fact that the associations we make between cause and effect are the result of constant conjunction and habituation. He also stresses the irrationality of the principle of uniformity of nature, which is a key principle of making connections between causes and effects. Although the observations of the nature of ideas surrounding cause and effect are sound, the conclusions of irrationality seem far stretched. He hastily throws around the label of “irrational”, and does not consider that perhaps lacking rationality in the classical sense is not necessarily conducive to being driven without reason.

Kant tackled Hume's skeptical view of causality. In Kants mind, causality is a central example of a category or pure concept of the understanding. Moreover, because Hume's famous discussion of causality and induction is equally central to his philosophy, understanding the relationship between the two philosophers on this issue is crucial for a proper understanding of modern philosophy more generally. Yet ever since Kant offered his response to Hume the topic has been subject to intense controversy. There is no consensus, of course, over whether Kant's response succeeds, but there is no more consensus about what this response is supposed to be.

For starters, the problem is not that we know for sure that something is going to happen, that is the case for deductive arguments. Instead, the problem in simple terms is that it is not justifiable like that of deductive arguments. What I mean by this is, in deduction, if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true, yet the same cannot be said for induction because it relies on predicting what is going to happen based on the premises. However, we have to acknowledge this for what it is, and instead come up with a way that proves that the premises in induction add support to the conclusion. The problem is how exactly is that possible if nowhere does it say what happens in the past will happen again in the future. Which now brings us to PUN or the Principle of Uniformity of Nature that exactly states that instances in the future are going to look like instances in the past. Voila! Since PUN offers a state of uniformity in the world, it works as the link that is necessary for us to make predictions about the future based solely upon what happen in the past. For example, if all observed emeralds are green, according to PUN, I can say that all unobserved emeralds will be green also. Although this may possibly be true, according to Goodman, it simply is not enough to solve the problem as there is a New Riddle of Induction.

Hume’s Problem of Induction is finding justification for basing universal conclusions/ generalizations on particular instances. Hume believes that inductive inference is not a valid way of finding out what really happens in the world. Just because we kick a ball numerous times and see that it falls back to the ground numerous times, “does not give us any logical justification for believing” that the ball will absolutely return once it has been kicked (Magee 161). Hume argues that “these expectations are nothing more…than the fact that in the past, our expectations have not always been disappointed” (Magee 161). Just because someone is never wrong does not mean they are always right. It may seem like they