Abstract

The problem of induction is one of the oldest, and one of the most intractable, of philosophical problems. Possibly its clearest formulation occurs in a celebrated discussion by David Hume, where it is posed as the question of whether there is anything “in any object, considered in itself, which can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it.” Hume's answer, famously, is that there is not: “we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience,” even after the observation of their “frequent or constant conjunction” (1739, bk 1, pt III. sec. XII; italics original). However extensive the observational evidence, there is, according to Hume, no legitimate inference to the truth or even the probability of any hypothesis whose logical content transcends that evidence; what today we call ampliative, or inductive, inference is for Hume no species of reasoning at all, merely a psychological propensity (see hume).