James Van Cleve Reliability Justification And The Problem Of Induction

Whether we are aware of it or not, we depend on our past experiences to form our beliefs and ideas. Prior knowledge from personal experiences also explain why we come to the conclusions that we do in everyday life. Whether we like it or not, we are all guilty of believing things based on evidence we have formerly come across. There is a short little quiz in “Evidence” that proves to both you and Schulz that this is true. One of the seemingly simple questions included a photo of a shaded black rectangle with a white strip running behind it. The question was: “What is behind the shaded rectangle?” (Schulz, 365). Our automatic human assumption would be that the strip of white continued behind the rectangle. What we don’t think about is the fact that we truly don’t know what is actually behind that shaded rectangle, we use our former knowledge that something peaking through the top and the bottom must continue through the middle. The reality is, we have no logical indication what is really behind that black rectangle, but what is probable is what our mechanized answer is. Inductive reasoning is described as making

I think one of the best examples of Inductive Reasoning I used was the explanation of how efficient markets spur the growth and expansion of economic growth and how that is tied into globalization. As stated above, “Many Americans do not appreciate how efficient our markets are, in this case efficiency in reference to supply and demand is number one. These efficient markets allow economies to grow. As many have learned in a global world, when one economy grows, it spurs growth in

1. Analyze Stanton 's use of induction and deduction to support her claim and develop the argument. 4-5 paragraphs.

This leads us to our next premise, premise II, which states there are rational beliefs that are not supported by sufficient evidence. Clark identifies these rational beliefs as those acquired through sensory experience and beliefs that are self-evident. He supports this premise by giving examples of some of these beliefs “..The sky is blue, grass is green ..”(139). He goes on to say, “ ...every proposition is either true or false..”(139). I think that by Clark including these examples of beliefs through sensory experiences and self-evidence, he seems to be saying that through our experiences, one can acquire beliefs even if our beliefs are false. It is rational to believe that the sky is blue because it is a belief we acquire through seeing the sky is blue. But according to Clark, seeing that the sky is blue is not enough sufficient evidence (like the sufficient

The subject of freewill and determinism has been a matter of intense debate in the philosophical community for ages with the topic of compatibilism and incompatibilism. This essay will be reviewing and critiquing the work of a very well-known philosopher Peter Van Inwagen and his article “An Argument For Incompatibilism” and what does he mean by freewill and determinism.

Jonathan Vogel wrote Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation as a solution to accept the real world hypothesis over any skeptical hypothesis. Vogel presents a compelling argument for a definitive reason to accept that the world we are experiencing is in fact the real world. I believe that Vogel’s argument falls short of proving a reason for accepting the real world hypothesis over a skeptical one. In this paper I will clearly explain Vogels argument, explain some important concepts to understand, and attempt to refute the argument.

This is the assumption underlying all our ideas of causality. If the future does not resemble the past, then all our reason based on cause and effect will crumble. When Hume proposed questions such as “Is there any more intelligible proposition then to affirm that all trees will flourish in December and January, and will decay in May and June?” (49), Hume demonstrates that it is not a relation of ideas that future will resemble the past; it is possible that the course of nature will change. Therefore, what happens in the future is neither a relation of ideas, nor a matter of fact. “It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of past to future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.”(51)

“It is clear why this makes for rapid and powerful progress. For exploring the unknown, there is no faster method; this is the minimum sequence of steps. Any conclusion that is not an exclusion is insecure and must be rechecked. Any delay in recycling to the next set of hypotheses is only a delay. Strong inference, and the logical tree it generates, are to inductive reasoning what the syllogism is to deductive reasoning, in that it offers a regular method for reaching firm inductive conclusions one after the other as rapidly as possible.”

In the selection, ‘Skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding’, David Hume poses a problem for knowledge about the world. This question is related to the problem of induction. David Hume was one of the first who decided to analyze this problem. He starts the selection by providing his form of dividing the human knowledge, and later discusses reasoning and its dependence on experience. Hume states that people believe that the future will resemble the past, but we have no evidence to support this belief. In this paper, I will clarify the forms of knowledge and reasoning and examine Hume’s problem of induction, which is a challenge to Justified True Belief account because we lack a justification for our

The world is a complicated place that works in mysterious ways, but people, with their inquisitive minds, refuse to let even the most confounding puzzles go unsolved. Science provides explanations for aspect of the world with no tangible evidence. But more often than not, science gets it wrong. One way to test the validity of a scientific theory is the use of the Hypothetico-Deductive Method. The results of such a method provide evidence of confirmation or disconfirmation, though these results cannot always be trusted. The world is complicated, thus it requires an equally complicated instrument of discovery. With such complexity, philosophical problems in reasoning are bound to arise, but there is always a solution to such issues.

Undoubtedly, Aristotle’s method works perfectly on things that can be effortlessly observed. As mentioned in The Beginnings of Western Science, by repeatedly observing dogs’ characteristics and adopting induction method, we are able to deduce what a dog really is and its living habits (Lindberg, 1992). Nonetheless, concerning things that cannot be simply observed, the observation results could be untrue which result in wrong induction and deduction. Take the celestial bodies as an example. By repeated observations, Aristotle induced and deduced that celestial bodies were perfect smooth spheres with their motion being perfect circular motions (Lindberg, 1992). This is not erroneous. Conversely, by turning theoretical questions into mathematical models, it is possible to establish accurate propositions on things that cannot be easily observed. For instance, Halley applied Newton’s results and successfully predicted the reappearance of the “Halley’s comet” right on schedule (Lindberg, 1992). Therefore, Newton’s method not only helps us know the readily observable matters but also the matters that are not readily

It is logical to say that things happen for a reason. A ball, kicked by a child in a playground, flies through the air and eventually comes down to the ground. The child has kicked the ball enough times to expect that once the ball reaches its highest point, it will fall. Through experience of kicking the ball and it coming back to the ground, the child will develop expectations of this action. This thought process seems sound, yet a question of certainty arises. Can we be certain that future events will be like past events? Can we be certain that the ball will fall once it has been kicked? This concept was one of David Hume’s most famous philosophical arguments: the Problem of Induction. This paper will outline Hume’s standpoint, as well give criticism for his argument.

The problem of induction is a question that challenges the justification of premises and their conclusions. It also gathers empirical evidence through observations and experiences and questions their validity concerning circumstances that happen every day. In fact, Hume, one of the philosophers discussed in this paper says, that to claim something as “more probable” is invalid because the assumption that the past will predict the future is still required.

According to Karl Schneider from the article “Boring and unambitious? ... then you must be an engineer. So says a survey of 2,718 final-year engineering undergraduates” He states “Unfortunately for engineers, the stereotype that they are boring, un-ambitious, unattractive and male persists.” This is weak induction because there is no facts or data being collected stating that all engineers are boring, un-ambitious and unattractive. Mr. Brown continued, with strong induction, as a “scientific part of logic.” This part of induction comes from being rational, with a process to thinking, within that process is a logos from the ethos. Which means, all the facts and data that has been collected can be backed up to a following source. Furthermore, the facts that come from the scientific observation is not an irrational thinking process and more of a rational thinking process. According to Hugh Aldersey-Williams from the “The Third Coming of Carbon” he states this “the only known forms of pure carbon were diamond and graphite. Thus the discovery of a third form is remarkable in itself ... fairly abundant in nature, as attested by the recent unearthing of fullerenes in carbon-rich geological formations.” Here there is strong induction because there are facts that can be backed up to this statement. Even though I don’t have the full text you can still understand that

In his work “Conjectures and Refutations,” Popper discussed several aspects of induction including the topics of conjectures (opinions or conclusions formed on the basis of incomplete information) or tentative theories and refutations (ways to refute an argument, opinion, testimony, doctrine, or theory, through contradicting evidence) or the acts of disproving arguments through counterexamples (Oxford).