HUME SKEPTIC ON INDUCTION?

Is Hume a Skeptic on Induction?

Is Hume a Skeptic on Induction?

Introduction

David Hume belongs to the early modern period. He was one of the British Empiricists. David Hume is known for applying the empirical standards of knowledge rigorously to necessity and causation. The most important contributions to the causation philosophy of Hume are found in 'An Enquiry concerning human understanding', and 'A treatise of human nature'. The former can be seen as a partial recasting of the latter. Hume is known for holding a strange set of views regarding induction. On one hand, he thinks that one cannot make predict anything about the future due to the events and facts that have happened in the past. On the other hand, he claims that inductive inferences are totally justified. These two claims seem to go in different directions. In this study, the insights behind the view of Hume on induction are studied in detail.

Discussion

Traditionally, David Hume has been considered to be a skeptic on induction. In the history of philosophy, he has offered one of the most strong versions of the induction problem. Induction can be defined as the process of inferring things about future on the grounds of events and facts from the past. Some think that all Hume has argued is that if reason is interpreted in a rationalist and narrow manner that is aligned with the assumption of a deductivist that merely those arguments are good that are valid deductive ones, then the aspect of reasoning does not have anything to do with our formation of beliefs regarding the unobserved on the grounds of the observed. Others, particularly, Garrett, view Hume to be arguing that from a more inclusive perspective, reason that Hume himself uses the term, that is, to cover both probable and demonstrative arguments, is not the causal source of the inductive inferences of human beings (Garrett, 1997, p. 67).

The works of Hume reveal that according to him induction cannot be justified. There is no convincing argument that can represent that theories are predictions that are based on induction are reasonable at all. According to Hume, “Past and present experiences give us no… reason at all to believe anything about the unobserved… As far as the competition for degrees of reasonableness is concerned, all possible beliefs about the unobserved are tied for last place” (Hume, 2000, pp. 52 - 54). As it is evident in his project, the concern of Hume is not with the warrant for the inductive practice of human beings, rather his concern is with their origin. Therefore, he takes this fact for granted that reasoning that is inductive in nature is entirely justified. The question that Hume raises at this thought is that is reason is the thing that determines human beings then it should do so via some sound arguments. The dispute that arises is that what is the perception of 'reason' that Hume has in his mind (Bailey & O'Brien, 2012, ...