This article argues that a successful answer to Hume's problem of induction can be developed from a sub-genre of philosophy of science known as formal learning theory. One of the central concepts of formal learning theory is logical reliability: roughly, a method is logically reliable when it is assured of eventually settling on the truth for every sequence of data that is possible given what we know. I show that the principle of induction (PI) is necessary and sufficient (...) for logical reliability in what I call simple enumerative induction. This answer to Hume's problem rests on interpreting PI as a normative claim justified by a non-empirical epistemic means-ends argument. In such an argument, a rule of inference is shown by mathematical or logical proof to promote a specified epistemic end. Since the proof concerning PI and logical reliability is not based on inductive reasoning, this argument avoids the circularity that Hume argued was inherent in any attempt to justify PI. (shrink)

In the mid-eighteenth century David Hume argued that successful prediction tells us nothing about the truth of the predicting theory. But physical theory routinely predicts the values of observable magnitudes within very small ranges of error. The chance of this sort of predictive success without a true theory suggests that Hume's argument is flawed. However, Colin Howson argues that there is no flaw and examines the implications of this disturbing conclusion; he also offers a solution to one of the (...) central problems of Western philosophy, the problem of induction. (shrink)

A new approach to Hume's problem of induction that justifies the optimality of induction at the level of meta-induction. Hume's problem of justifying induction has been among epistemology's greatest challenges for centuries. In this book, Gerhard Schurz proposes a new approach to Hume's problem. Acknowledging the force of Hume's arguments against the possibility of a noncircular justification of the reliability of induction, Schurz demonstrates instead the possibility of a noncircular justification of the optimality (...) of induction, or, more precisely, of meta-induction (the application of induction to competing prediction models). Drawing on discoveries in computational learning theory, Schurz demonstrates that a regret-based learning strategy, attractivity-weighted meta-induction, is predictively optimal in all possible worlds among all prediction methods accessible to the epistemic agent. Moreover, the a priori justification of meta-induction generates a noncircular a posteriori justification of object induction. Taken together, these two results provide a noncircular solution to Hume's problem. Schurz discusses the philosophical debate on the problem of induction, addressing all major attempts at a solution to Hume's problem and describing their shortcomings; presents a series of theorems, accompanied by a description of computer simulations illustrating the content of these theorems (with proofs presented in a mathematical appendix); and defends, refines, and applies core insights regarding the optimality of meta-induction, explaining applications in neighboring disciplines including forecasting sciences, cognitive science, social epistemology, and generalized evolution theory. Finally, Schurz generalizes the method of optimality-based justification to a new strategy of justification in epistemology, arguing that optimality justifications can avoid the problems of justificatory circularity and regress. (shrink)

The pandemic significantly raised the stakes for the translation of bioethics insights into policy. The novelty, range and sheer quantity of the ethical problems that needed to be addressed urgently within public policy were unprecedented and required high‐bandwidth two‐way transfer of insights between academic bioethics and policy. Countries such as the United Kingdom, which do not have a National Ethics Committee, faced particular challenges in how to facilitate this. This paper takes as a case study the brief career of the (...) Ethics Advisory Board (EAB) for the NHS Covid‐19 App, which shows both the difficulty and the political complexity of policy‐relevant bioethics in a pandemic and how this was exacerbated by the transience and informality of the structures through which ethics advice was delivered. It analyses how and why, after EAB's demise, the Westminster government increasingly sought to either take its ethics advice in private or to evade ethical scrutiny of its policies altogether. In reflecting on EAB, and these later ethics advice contexts, the article provides a novel framework for analysing ethics advice within democracies, defining four idealised stances: the pure ethicist, the advocate, the ethics arbiter and the critical friend. (shrink)

This short paper provides an explanation of Hume's problem of induction.

Lucy Allais seeks to provide a reading of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories which is compatible with a nonconceptualist account of Kant’s theory of intuition. According to her interpretation, the aim of the Deduction is to show that a priori concept application is required for empirical concept application. I argue that once we distinguish the application of the categories from the instantiation of the categories, we see that Allais’s reconstruction of the Deduction cannot provide an answer to Hume’s (...) class='Hi'>problem about our entitlement to use a priori concepts when thinking about the objects of empirical intuition. If the Deduction is to provide a response to Hume, Allais’s interpretation must be rejected. (shrink)

This paper addresses Harman’s approach to enumerative induction as a case of inference to the best explanation. Αfter taking under brief consideration Hume’s critique to induction, the paper argues that Harman’s proposal does not improve the situation since the same characteristics of induction and the kind of skepticism associated with it reappear in case of inference to the best explanation. Then the paper questions Armstrong’s attempt to upgrade Harman’s suggestion by regarding a necessitation relation among two universals (a natural law) (...) as the best explanans of the n observed cases of an enumerative induction procedure. It holds that Armstrong’s modification of Harman’s approach faces some difficulties which arise in the context of his views about instantiated universals. Instead, the paper investigates the possibility to assign the role of the explanans to a metaphysically stronger condition. It suggests that accounts of natural laws as metaphysically necessary facts concerning natural kinds can contribute in an attempt for a more fertile application of Harman’s approach. (shrink)

Many attempts have been made to solve Hume's problem. However, the assumptions leading to the problem have remained largely unnoticed. Moreover, since Goodman introduced the predicate "grue", philosophers without relevant mathematical education have been confused. In addition, various delusive arguments from convergence have been presented. In this book, it is maintained that knowledge has to be feasible and relevant and that several solutions fail to meet that demand. It is argued that the crucial presupposition of the (...) class='Hi'>problem of induction is that clairvoyance is impossible and that this presupposition is unproven. Generalized Goodman predicates are introduced. To criticize arguments from convergence, the notion of "undecided game" is introduced. A relationship between Zeno's paradox and the problem of induction is revealed. A distinction between "do not know" and "cannot know" is consistently held. It is concluded that, as yet, we do not know the future and that it is impossible to prove that it is impossible to know the future. This book should be useful to professionals in epistemology and philosophy of science, and might be of interest to logicians and mathematicians. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use (...) of Hume throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes’ initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume’s elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, (...) Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work? (shrink)

Hume raises the issue of how common life and philosophy are related. He presents the possibility that they are irreconcilably opposed, that philosophy rigorously and honestly pursued must lead to skepticism. I discuss some prominent interpretive issues about Hume in light of this opposition between common life and philosophy. I also argue that this opposition is a deep and general philosophical problem, and sketch an approach to this problem. ;These are my interpretive claims: I argue that Hume has (...) constructive aims in his epistemology, and that he is surprised when his naturalism subverts these constructive aims and leads to skepticism. I argue that Hume does not entertain a moral skepticism similar to his skepticism about the external world and causal relations, but that he should have entertained such a skepticism. I argue that, in the Dialogues, Philo does not concede that religious belief is natural and therefore secure despite its unreasonableness. Rather, Philo contends that religious belief is not natural, and contends that this lack of naturalness gives us principled grounds for preferring causal and moral beliefs to natural ones. However, I argue, the problem of general philosophical skepticism keeps this religious skepticism from being satisfactory. ;I use the interpretation of Hume to clarify and deepen Hume's Problem, and to begin working toward a solution of that problem. I argue that there is a perspective we can take up that makes skepticism about the status of our physical and moral beliefs and practices seem inevitable. To resolve Hume's Problem, we must show that this perspective is the wrong perspective on human life, or at least that there is some alternative perspective that does not lead to skepticism but is no less rational than the perspective that does lead to skepticism. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 3-4, September - December 2019, Page 229-231.

In this essay we argue that if the covering-law model of moral justification is correct, Hume's "is"-"ought" paragraph calls the possibility of a justifiable theory of moral obligation in doubt. In the first section we delineate Hume's doubts. In the second section we develop a skeptical solution to those doubts.

Necessity holds that, if a proposition A supports another B, then it must support B. John Greco contends that one can resolve Hume's Problem of Induction only if she rejects Necessity in favor of reliabilism. If Greco's contention is correct, we would have good reason to reject Necessity and endorse reliabilism about inferential justification. Unfortunately, Greco's contention is mistaken. I argue that there is a plausible reply to Hume's Problem that both endorses Necessity and is at (...) least as good as Greco's alternative. Hence, Greco provides a good reason for neither rejecting Necessity nor endorsing inferential reliabilism. (shrink)

In a recent Philosophy of Science article Gerhard Schurz proposes meta-inductivistic prediction strategies as a new approach to Hume's. This comment examines the limitations of Schurz's approach. It can be proven that the meta-inductivist approach does not work any more if the meta-inductivists have to face an infinite number of alternative predictors. With his limitation it remains doubtful whether the meta-inductivist can provide a full solution to the problem of induction.

본고는 흄의 외부 세계 현존 문제에 대한 비판적 재구성을 꾀한다. 흄은 그의 주저 『인성론』 1권, 4부, 2절 논의(“감관들에 관련된 회의주의에 대해서Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses”)에서 지금까지도 계속 철학자들의 골치를 썩이는 이 문제를 다룬다. 하지만 흄의 논의는 필요 이상으로 장황하고 복잡다단하며 불분명한 탓에, 일단 먼저 그가 제시한 논증을 차례대로 좇아서 살피기 전에 논증의 전 구조를 망라하는 그림이 필요하다. 따라서 본고에서 필자는, 첫째, 외부 세계 현존 문제를 위한 흄의 논증 기저에 놓인 근본적 사유틀을 압축해서 드러낸다. 둘째, 이러한 사유틀을 기초로 해서 (...) 발현된 흄의 논증에 깃든 다양한 문제점들을 살핀다. 필자는 흄의 논증에 대한 비판을 면밀하게 수행하는 과정에서 김효명 교수가 『영국경험론』 제5장 말미(pp.152-162.)에서 흄의 견해를 줄곧 따라서 보인 해석이 직면하는 어려움도 보인다. 셋째, 지금까지 검토한 내용을 바탕으로, 결국 흄은 그의 자연주의를 지탱하는 능력에 일관되게 호소하면서 외부 세계 현존 문제에 대한 의미 있는 (즉, 존재론적 차원의 논의를 심리학적 차원의 논의로 전환하는) 답변을 제시하고자 하지만, 그의 노력은 그가 매우 의도성 짙게 ‘지각’과 ‘대상’을 상호 무분별히 뒤섞어서 쓰는 사정에 기인하기 때문에 논의에 일관성이 없으며, 이러한 비일관적 상황이 초래하는 결과는 그의 인간학에 대한 근원적 회의로 나타남이 지적될 것이다. (shrink)

Hume's Problem comprises two main projects: defending Hume's argument about induction against a dozen or so purported answers, and laying out a logic of induction that incorporates Hume's great insight in a formal theory. In this review, I will look at several instances of Howson's defense of Hume; then I will sketch the broad outlines of Howson's own "answer," the details of which are myriad and sometimes technical.

Philosophers talk routinely of 'Hume's problem of induction'. But the usual accompanying exegesis is mistaken in a way that has led epistemologists to conceive of 'Hume's problem' in needlessly narrow terms. They have overlooked a way of articulating the conceptual problem, along with a potential way of solving it. Indeed, they have overlooked Hume's own way. In explaining this, I will supplement Hume's insights by adapting Ryle's thinking on knowledge-how and knowledge-that. We will (...) also see why Hume's 'sceptical solution' was a perfectly appropriate response to his 'sceptical argument' -- rather than (as is often thought by analytic epistemologists) a merely descriptive response patently missing the normative sceptical point so strikingly formulated by Hume. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:104 COMMENTARY ON PROFESSOR TWEYMAN ' S 'HUME ON EVIL' Philo concludes his long and celebrated debate with Cleanthes on the problem of evil (Parts X and Xl of Hume's Dialogues) with the assertion that the "true conclusion" to be drawn from the "mixed phenomena" in the world is that "the original source" of whatever order we find in the world is "indifferent" to matters of good (...) and evil. From what Philo says immediately thereafter it is clear that by the phrase "The true conclusion is..." he does not mean 'The truth is...' but rather something like 'The conclusion best supported by the available evidence is....' (D 212) Now according to both Nelson Pike and Stanley Tweyman, the claim made by Philo in these passages involves him in a shift or departure from the procedure he adopted in earlier dialogues when he examined the design argument set forth by Cleanthes. It is claimed that whereas in the earlier dialogues Philo emphatically professed a sceptical outlook — "the view requiring that one embrace no metaphysical position of one's own" (to quote Nelson Pike ) — in the quoted passage he seems to abandon this scepticism in favor of embracing what amounts to being a metaphysical position in natural theology. Pike thinks that this alleged shift is only an apparent one, that the central import of these passages is sceptical rather than metaphysical, and that here, as elsewhere in the earlier dialogues, Philo's sole purpose in offering a more plausible counter-hypothesis is to show that Cleanthes' hypothesis is false. Tweyman, on the other hand, argues that the shift is a very real one and that Hume does indeed "intend Philo's conclusion in Part XI to be a truth in natural theology [.]... Philo is 105 not arguing as a sceptic; rather he is employing the hypothetico-deductive method for testing Cleanthes' 2 hypothesis. " Let me say at once that I agree with Tweyman, as against Pike, that in these passages Philo does claim to put forward a truth Jji natural theology, and I also agree with just about everything that Tweyman says in his paper concerning the proper interpretation of Philo's views in Parts X and XI leading up to this conclusion. I follow the lead of those scholars who, at least since Kemp Smith, have argued that Philo's whole purpose in demonstrating such "truths" is to discredit natural theology in the eyes of a true Christian believer by dramatizing the enormous gulf between the very attenuated form of theism ("diaphonous deism" one scholar calls it), which is the most one can hope to get out of Cleanthes' experimental approach to religion, and the claim of Christian theism to which Cleanthes aspires. But I do not accept the view that Philo's claim in these dialogues represents any sort of sudden departure (and certainly not a "fundamental methodological difference") from his critical stance against the design argument in earlier dialogues. What I hope to show below is that not only does this view distort what Philo does in the earlier dialogues, but it also distracts our attention from the true nature of Hume's achievement in Parts X and XI of the Dialogues. (Incidentally, I will assume throughout the sequel that Kemp Smith's identification of Hume with Philo is essentially correct. ) It would indeed be extremely paradoxical, in the face of Philo's famous (or notorious) peroration at the end of Part VIII proclaiming the "complete triumph of the sceptic" in regard to "all religious 106 systems," to raise any doubts about Philo's acceptance of the sceptical import of his own earlier arguments. But this still leaves unsettled the question as to what sort of scepticism it is whose triumph Philo proclaims at this point and whether it is inconsistent with the conclusion he reaches at the end of his discussion of evil. One would have hoped that at this late stage in the scholarship on the Dialogues, if there is one issue on which all of us could agree it is that Philo at no time in the Dialogues takes the (easy) Pyrrhonian line against Cleanthes' "hypothesis of experimental theism." I mention this because at several places... (shrink)

An appreciation of Hume’s psychology of object identity allows us to recognize certain tensions in his discussion of the origin of our belief in personal identity---tensions which have gone largely unnoticed in the secondary literature. This will serve to provide a new solution to the problem of explaining why Hume finds that discussion of personal identity so problematic when he famously disavows it in the Appendix to the Treatise. It turns out that the two psychological mechanisms which respectively generate (...) the ideas of object and of personal identity are mutually incompatible. It is this sort of conflict within Hume’s introspective or subjectivist psychology which is the source of his worry. (shrink)

John searle has recently claimed to have dissolved what daniel dennett calls 'hume's problem'--The question whether the explanation of behavior by appeal to mental representations can be done without circularity or infinite regress. Searle argues that a careful analysis of the concept of an intentional state shows that mental representations do not require intentional "homunculi" to explain how intentional states have their contents, And, Hence dennett's worry is groundless. I argue that searle's conceptual analysis of intentional states, Even (...) if correct, Provides no clue of an answer to the worry underlying hume's problem. (shrink)

We argue that uncomputability and classical scepticism are both reflections of inductive underdetermination, so that Church's thesis and Hume's problem ought to receive equal emphasis in a balanced approach to the philosophy of induction. As an illustration of such an approach, we investigate how uncomputable the predictions of a hypothesis can be if the hypothesis is to be reliably investigated by a computable scientific method.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:167. ON McRAE' S HUME Professor McRae's interesting paper may be rather naturally divided into two parts. In the first part he explains what he takes Hume's account of time to be; in the second he advances the bold thesis that Hume's account of time, or perhaps of duration, provides a basis or foundation for his more widely discussed remarks on identity, substance, the self, the necessary (...) connections. In what follows I first reconstruct Professor McRae' s paper, and then I raise some problems, perhaps puzzles, about Hume's view on duration, time and fictions. According to McRae, some philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) distinguish between time and duration, both of which are taken to be perfectly legitimate notions. Hume, by contrast, takes time and duration to be the same, viz., a succession of moments. What philosophers and the vulgar call 'duration' is something quite different, namely a single unbroken stretch of time which is not composed of successive parts. Of duration taken in this latter way, McRae says, Hume has four things to say, all of them negative: (1) we have no idea of duration; (2) no object has duration; (3) there is no such thing as duration; and (4) duration is a fiction. Properly understood as a succession of moments, however, time certainly exists and is thus not a fiction. Moreover, we have the or at least an idea of time, despite the fact that it is obtained without derivation from a precedent impression. And, while no object can be said to have time, Hume will nonetheless allow that objects exist at certain times and perhaps across a time span. In the second part of his paper, Professor McRae distinguishes two types of Humean fictions. The first arises when one idea is confused with another and mis-applied to some object. The second arises when the imagination creates an "idea" in the attempt to resolve a 168. contradiction which comes up when the first fiction is applied to an object. What I have called McRae' s "bold thesis" in the second part of his paper can now be stated. Duration, or the putative idea thereof, is a fiction of the first type, one that is attributed to what Hume calls "steadfast objects." However, such an object can be considered in two ways. One might consider the object at two stages of this duration and, McRae says, "...this will give us the idea of number" (p. 126); or, one might consider in turn a series of objects, each of them supposedly "steadfast," all along supposing that though time is changing, the objects are not, and "...in this way- we get the idea of unity" (Ibid.). But no object is both a unity and a multiplicity. So, to reconcile these conflicting considerations, the "idea" or fiction of identity is invented. As McRae says: "The idea of identity is a pure product of the imagination invented to mediate between unity and number" (Ibid. ). This invented "idea" is then mis-applied (a fiction of type one) to interrupted appearances of an object. To reconcile the supposed identity of an object with successive appearances of it, the fiction of substance is invented. Quoting both McRae and Hume, In order to reconcile the contradiction between identity and diversity, the imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible, which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations ; 2 and this unintelligible something it calls a substance... (p. 128). Related needs to resolve contradictions, on McRae' s account, lead to the fictions of the self (p. 128) and of necessary connections (p. 130), though the latter fiction is of type one. Hence, McRae' s "bold thesis" amounts to this: Duration is a fiction. In the attempt to apply this fiction, one is led to, logically led to, most, if not all, of the other famous Humean fictions. And, if we allow that there are mental acts, for Hume, as well as impressions and ideas, "...then a fictitious duration will be attributed to 169. objects and by a progressive compounding of fictitious mental actions will give the world the ontological structure which it has for the vulgar belief we all share. It... (shrink)

Marc Lange has criticized my assertion that relative to a Bayesian conception of inductive reasoning, Hume's argument for inductive scepticism cannot be run. I reply that the way in which Lange suggests one should run the Humean argument in a Bayesian framework ignores the fact that in Bayesian models of learning from experience, the domain of an agent's probability measure is exogenously determined. I also show that Lange is incorrect to equate probability distributions which 'support inductive inferences' with probability (...) distributions which assign probability to contingent propositions/events. (shrink)

Philosophers talk routinely of ‘Hume's problem of induction’. But the usual accompanying exegesis is mistaken in a way that has led epistemologists to conceive of ‘Hume's problem’ in needlessly narrow terms. They have overlooked a way of articulating the conceptual problem, along with a potential way of solving it. Indeed, they have overlooked Hume's own way. In explaining this, I will supplement Hume's insights by adapting Ryle's thinking on knowledge-how and knowledge-that. We will (...) also see why Hume's ‘sceptical solution’ was a perfectly appropriate response to his ‘sceptical argument’ — rather than a merely descriptive response patently missing the normative sceptical point so strikingly formulated by Hume. (shrink)

This paper explains what’s wrong with a Hume-inspired argument for skepticism about induction. Hume’s argument takes as a premise that inductive reasoning presupposes that the future will resemble the past. I explain why that claim is not plausible. The most plausible premise in the vicinity is that inductive reasoning from E to H presupposes that if E then H. I formulate and then refute a skeptical argument based on that premise. Central to my response is a psychological explanation for how (...) people judge that if E then H without realizing that they thereby settled the matter rationally. (shrink)

The article argues against the commonly held 'green glasses' interpretation of Kant's "a priori", where any one's familiar experience must be seen as integrated by space and time and the categories. Such an interpretation does not answer Hume's problem, Which was whether any necessary connection could be found in experience. For the connections of familiar experience are customary and contingent. Passages from Kant are cited to show that he meant by 'objective experience', not familiar experience, but that body (...) of scientific observation which has been connected according to law. The "a priori" turns out to be what the scientist finds necessary for the possibility of such a connected experience. (shrink)

In Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research Lee and Baskerville (2003) attempt to clarify generalization and distinguish four types of generalization. Although this is a useful objective, what they call generalization is often not generalization at all in the proper sense of the word. We elucidate generalization by locating their major errors. A main source of these is their failure to understand the depth of Hume’s problem of induction. We give a thorough explication of the problem and then (...) give a solution. Lastly, we propose an alternative taxonomy of generalization: theoretical, within-population, cross-population, contextual, and temporal. (shrink)

The task that Hume explicitly sets himself in 3.2 of the Treatise is to identify the motive that renders just actions virtuous and constitutes justice as a virtue. But surprisingly, he never provides a clear account of what this motive is. This is the problem of the missing motive. The goal of this paper is to explain this problem and offer a novel solution. To set up my solution, I analyze a recent proposal from Geoffrey Sayre-McCord and illustrate (...) what it gets right and what it gets wrong. I develop a solution that retains the benefits of his proposal while addressing its defects. The result is a significant advancement in our understanding of Hume’s theory of justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:19. HUME AND BARKER ON THE LOGIC OF DESIGN I find myself in complete agreement with what I take to be the main thesis of Stephen Barker's paper. It is certainly a mistake to concentrate our attention on the negative critique which Hume directed at the modes of argument of his rationalist predecessors and contemporaries and directed even more at the mode of certain conviction with which they presented (...) conclusions arrived at by arguments that did not have a logically compelling force. Hume was very much concerned with the problem of just what kind of force an argument that was not logically compelling could have; and he was even more concerned (perhaps) with the problem of how the logical structure of non-compelling argument could best be exhibited so that the logic of the argument would not be confused with its force. He made significant contributions to both of these problems; and I think he knew what he was doing well enough not to deserve the charge of inconsistency which Barker seems inclined to bring against him. There are some questions which he did not address, for the very good reason that they could only arise, or at least they could only be formulated clearly, as a result of the clarification of our ideas and our situation that Hume himself achieved. His distinction between "relations of ideas" and "matters of fact" may be overly simplistic. But in all its simplicity this distinction is powerful enough to enable Hume to deal quite shortly with any claim that it is inconsistent to want to achieve this goal of knowing and saying what is true, just because we have shown that we have no logical guarantee that we shall achieve it. Christian orthodoxy has always maintained that we are all of us equally "sinners"; but no orthodox Christian moralist has ever maintained the Stoic paradox that all sins are equal. It is precisely because we know that we cannot achieve Stoic wisdom that we cannot possibly be tempted to 20. accept that paradox. Hume's achievement was to show that (in spite of the serpent's false promise) our situation with respect to knowledge has always been just as parlous as our situation with respect to action. But even in these unhappy circumstances it is not inconsistent to strive for whatever measure of truth we can achieve; and to strive at the same time for absolute logical clarity about the limits of our insight and about the comparative merits of all proposed approaches to the goal. But I must not devote my time to an issue that Barker wisely asks us to keep an open mind about. I want to discuss the form and substance of the arguments with which Barker supports the thesis that I do agree with, rather than take up an aside of his that I happen not to agree with. So then, first, let us consider the fault that he finds in the "fifth way" of Thomas. He says that it "begs the question". It "obscures the nexus of controversy" because the first premiss of the syllogism makes a crucial assumption that needs to be proved. Now I deny that the "fifth way" obscures the nexus of controversy in that way. Thomas (and all of his competent hearers) knew perfectly well that his first premiss had not been universally accepted. He was stating the view of Aristotle about the generally purposive character of nature, and he knew that it had been doubted. But he did not think that a rational believer could hesitate about the choice between Aristotle's position and that of the atheist defenders of chance. Anyone who did hesitate was a fool, and arguments could not touch him. That some men were fools, and could "say in their heart, 'There is no God'", was part of the "problem of evil" which we must consign trustfully to the inscrutable wisdom of God (save in so far as Scripture reveals to us the origin of and reason for our fallen condition). In Hume's world, Aristotle's conception of the orderliness of Nature had been supplanted by Newton's. Newton accepted the atomist view that "natural bodies... (shrink)

ALBERT EINSTEIN’S CONNECTIONS WITH SPINOZA’S PHILOSOPHY The paper aims to analyze the influence of Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy on Albert Einstein’s work, in particular his physics. Einstein was a man of genius personality of contemporary physics, but we can see him as a prominent philosopher, too. He studied the philosophical works of Kant, Leibniz, Hume and other modern philosophers. But his most preferred thinker was Baruch Spinoza. Einstein knew very well Spinoza’s main book, Ethics. He accepted Spinoza’s concepts of human being (...) and the dignity of man in the history of the world. The concept of God proposed by the author of Ethics was very important for Einstein. Spinoza’s inspiring philosophy is present in Einstein’s vision of the universe and in his deterministic view on quantum mechanics. This problem is reflected in the paper too. Keywords: BARUCH SPINOZA, ALBERT EINSTEIN, CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS, UNIVERSE. (shrink)

In my paper I present David Hume's philosophy from the perspective of Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs. I argue that by interpreting impressions and ideas as iconic signs it is possible to avoid many inconsistencies in Hume's philosophy. Apart from that it makes possible to avoid Hume's scepticism about the existence of the external world by introducing Peirce's concept of the dynamic and immediate object. What is more, the generative structure of signs helps us to deal (...) with the "gmissing shade of blue" problem. (shrink)

Close examination of the works of David Hume shows that his aim to explain the problem of evil is to attack natural theology and introduce it as a situation that is non-epistemological and unsystematic. So, contrary to what the majority of interpretations which typically express that he makes an argument against the existence of God, Hume wants to show that the statements of natural theology are rationally unprovable, and he does not want to totally decline them. As a matter (...) of fact, they ontologically exist, and are epistemologically out of human cognition. This article shows that the popular interpretation is false, and this would be done in two ways: the first is Hume’s statements about the cause of the world, and the second is Hume’s solutions for the problem of evil, that have mystical streaks. Based on these fact, it will be shown that Hume is not an atheist, but he is a mystical fideist. (shrink)

This article contends that certain types of Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS) are susceptible to Hume’s Law. Hume’s Law highlights the seeming impossibility of deriving moral judgments, if not all evaluative ones, from purely factual premises. If autonomous weapons make use of factual data from their environments to carry out specific actions, then justifying their ethical decisions may prove to be intractable in light of the said problem. In this article, Hume’s original formulation of the no-ought-from-is thesis is evaluated in (...) relation to the dominant views regarding it (viz., moral non-descriptivism and moral descriptivism). Citing the objections raised against these views, it is claimed that, if there is no clear-cut solution to Hume’s is-ought problem that presently exists, then the task of grounding the moral judgements of AWS would still be left unaccounted for. (shrink)

Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s survey of epistemological and metaphysical problems, taken from a positivist orientation, is notable for its brief, clear characterizations of philosophical problems and its well placed, simplified expositions of the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Bergson and Husserl. He focusses on the logical limitations of the solutions for clearly defined problems. Any lack of depth in this book is compensated for by the accurate outlines which encourage the reader to question the foundations of (...) classical positions. In the first part of the book, the theory of truth is given logical priority to epistemology. We "... should define truth as agreement of thought with final and irrevocable criteria," to avoid the contradiction of extreme skepticism which could not be formulated without, at least, tacit reference to "reality." Because of this positive but stipulative orientation, a priorism in epistemology is given a thorough exposition. Realism, "... we can know reality only on the basis of experience," is proposed to balance the abstractness of a priorism. (shrink)

A necessary refinement of the concept of circular reasoning is applied to the self-and-universally-referential inductive justification of induction. It is noted that the assumption necessary for the circular proof of a principle of induction is that one inference is valid, not that the entire principle or rule of induction governing that inference is true. The circularity in an ideal case is demonstrated to have a value of lin where n represents the number of inferences asserted valid by the conclusion of (...) the justifying argument, and the ‘I’ represents the inference necessarily assumed valid.An induction antinomy modeled after Russell’s antinomy of the set of all and only non-self-containing sets is derived. Isomorphic antinomies are noted to be derivable for other arguments of philosophical interest, including those purported to undermine theories of determinism, relativism, and skepticism, and including the one that Descartes reduced and converted to ‘Cogito, ergo sum’. (shrink)