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Is The Argument Of Induction Or Truth?

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There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them.”- Jo Walton The complex question of whether or not tomorrow morning we will see the sun rise in the east often never enters the mind of a person separated from the study of Philosophy. The question arises from the argument of Induction. Induction enables us to ultimately assume future events by putting our trust in past events that we have experienced. This means the premises of an argument support the conclusion but do not make the conclusion fact. We have all sung along to the lyrics, ‘The sun will come out tomorrow’ from John Huston’s Annie. But can we really hold this as truth? In my essay I will be arguing that induction, though it …show more content…

There are no answers as to why we should use induction or why we have reason to believe that nature is uniform that does not fall short of errors. We may say that I have observed many patterns in my existence that give me reason to believe that these patterns will continue in the future because they have done so hitherto. However we don’t know that these patterns will definitely continue. The sun has risen every day but how do we know for a fact that it will rise tomorrow? The point is we do not fully but we rely on induction because it is the simplest method to use. Moreover, Induction becomes a circular argument where we rely on induction to justify induction as Hume points out. We say that we use induction because it has worked in the past but this becomes …show more content…

We have only had experience of mortal men but that is not to say that immortal men do not exist or will not exist in the future or even in another world. Some would argue that the only truths in the world are mathematical truths and that everything is just a presumption. 1 plus 1 will always equal to 2 but the sun may not rise tomorrow based on our experience of yesterday. This being said, inductive arguments allow us to expand our thinking and give us new information while deductive arguments just attempt to prove truths. It is without a doubt that induction provides us with learning processes. Without induction we would not know that fires are hot and we should not touch them. Also, we would not know that knives are sharp and we should not hold them against our skin. To live without induction would mean that humans would not live by the method of trial and error without the principle of learning from these errors. Therefore, its importance is crucial in the development of our existence despite its lack of sound justification. In response to Hume’s claim that induction can only be wholly justified by deduction, Hans Reichenbach claimed that a more pragmatic approach was needed instead. Reichenbach simply puts induction as our ‘best bet’ which is satisfactory as a response. He argued that for any chance of success, induction should be used. Failing to continue the use of induction

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