Essay about Probabilist - Deductive Inference in Gassendi's Logic

Kathryn Schulz argues in “Evidence”, a chapter of her book called Being Wrong, that we need to “learn to actively combat our inductive biases: to deliberately seek out evidence that challenges our beliefs, and to take seriously such evidence when we come across it” (Schulz, 377”). By attending to counterevidence we can avoid making errors in our conclusions.

In this paper, I’ll state, explain and evaluate Ruth Barcan Marcus’s argument in section 4 of her article “A Proposed Solution to a Puzzle about Belief”.

Induction is a form of reasoning where the premises support the conclusion, but do not confirm that the conclusion is true. To justify induction, we are required to justify that we can infer that experiences we have never experienced will resemble those that we have experienced. Making inductive inferences is necessary for everyday life as well as in science. It is rational to rely on inductive arguments in everyday life for claims such as “the sun will rise tomorrow.” But inductive arguments require that nature is uniform. For example, tomorrow the laws of physics will continue to work the same as how they have in the past, so the world will continue spinning and the sun will rise. This perceived uniformity (the principle of uniformity of nature) allows claims like the one previously outlined to be easily understood. Although inductive arguments are useful, whether or not they can be justified is a topic of debate. In James Van Cleve’s “Reliability, Justification and the Problem of Induction,” he uses an inductive argument to attempt to justify induction. In his justification he claims that his method of argument is not circular. I argue that his reasoning is problematic because an inductive argument is not able to justify induction, mainly because inductive arguments presuppose the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature.

Empiricists believe that you gain knowledge through experience, however, what our experiences are telling us can also be lies. Bertrand Russell made up the term “sense data” to explain what our experiences really are. Russell’s explanation of sense data inevitably leads to bigger skeptical worries that seem unanswerable. Russell presents strong arguments for skepticism and then ultimately dodges them with the use of the law of parsimony. Russell’s response to his argument lacks luster and falls short, his argument should have left him a skeptic.

To have a belief in something is not to be mistaken as having knowledge of something, for these terms (belief and knowledge) are not to be seen as synonymous. This is further explored within the written philosophical work titled On Certainty by Ludwig Wittgenstien. This piece stands as a response to G.E. Moore’s written work “A Proof of The External World”. As way to justify that there is a world external of our sense, Moore uses his hand as a (sufficient) tool. This because he believes that what can be known through immediate sense experience is how one can acquire “commonsense” knowledge. To Moore, commonsense knowledge is knowledge that denies the possibility of doubt, which in turn lays down a foundation for all knowledge.

In the critique of pure reason, Kant states, “All alternations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect.”1 This statement is interpreted in two different ways: weak readings and strong readings. The weak readings basically suggest that Kant's statement only refer to “All events have a cause”; however, the strong readings suggest that “the Second Analogy is committed not just to causes, but to causal laws as well.”2 To understand the difference between the readings, it is helpful to notice Kant's distinction between empirical laws of nature and universal transcendental principles. Empirical laws have an empirical element that universal transcendental principles cannot imply. On the other hand, empirical experiences require necessity to become a law, accordingly, “the transcendental laws “ground” the empirical laws by supplying them with their necessity.”3In this paper, according to this distinction, I first, argue that the second analogy supports the weak reading, second, show how in Prolegomena he uses the concept of causation in a way that is compatible to the strong reading, and third, investigate whether this incongruity is solvable.

In Berkeley’s argument about the existence of the external world I found it to be convincing up until a point. There were many good arguments that definitely persuaded me to agree with his viewpoints, but at the end of the passage, and at the peak of my understanding of his argument I found that his argument ended up being unconvincing and in some parts completely contradictory. In general the argument wasn’t convincing, but in the more specific areas it convinced me greatly.

My thesis is that Price’s Bayesian argument, arguably the first use of Bayes’ Theorem to challenge another published argument fails. It fails on three fronts: it mischaracterizes Hume’s argument as non-conditional; it improperly employs a Bayesian model test case of newspaper reporting; and it does not consider the effects of the preliminary seeding of probabilities for its Bayesian model of miracles.

In Baron Reeds, “A New Argument for Skepticism,” a new idea is brought to light to agree with the argument for skepticism. Usually, skeptical arguments require knowledge to be

The idea of empirical knowledge differs sharply from other forms of knowledge not only in content but more in logic. Empirical knowledge tends to be created using deductive reasoning rather than inductive reasoning. In fact much of the scientific methodology depends heavily on deductive reasoning and quantitative methodology for knowledge construction. It is at this point an important contribution of Hume is noted. Hume with strong logic addresses the "problem of induction" and thus gives life to deduction (Burton 1846). Hume examines the challenges with human reasoning when he considers the problem with induction.

“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.”

A response to the sceptic’s argument is the central point of discussion in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Wittgenstein is aware of the complexity and variance of the skeptic’s argument and tailors his response accordingly, criticizing his colleague G. E. Moore for not recognizing the point of the skeptic in saying:

People tend to believe in many things is life. They sometimes believe based on their intuitions without carrying on sufficient believes behind then. What is a belief? What is sufficient evidence? This paper aims to propose a brief discussion between William Clifford and William James.

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

Foundationalism empirical justification is on the right track by accepting basic belief although there are some complications I will be attempting to show how non-propositional and non-conceptual states can stand in evidentiary relation to propositions. There is still some work must be done to prove what can constitute as basic beliefs and how they develop a sense of truth.