David Hume 's Theory Of Induction

Hume argues that we cannot prove that there is a real world outside our experience, much less that our experience is an accurate representation of that world. He says we need to get outside our experience to see whether it does fairly represent the world, however, its near impossible to do that.

Have you ever wondered about the world beyond its original state? How we know that electricity produces a light bulb to light up or causes the sort of energy necessary to produce heat? But in the first place, what is electricity? Nor have we seen it and not we encountered it; however, we know what it can do, hence its effects. To help us better understand the notion of cause and effect, David Hume, an empiricist and skepticist philosopher, proposed the that there is no such thing as causation. In his theory, he explained the deliberate relationship between the cause and effect, and how the two factors are not interrelated. Think of it this way: sometimes we end up failing to light a match even though it was struck. The previous day, it lit up, but today it did not. Why? Hume’s theory regarding causation helps us comprehend matters of cause and effect, and how we encounter the effects in our daily lives, without the cause being necessary. According to Hume, since we never experience the cause of something, we cannot use inductive reasoning to conclude that one event causes another. In other words, causal necessity (the cause and effect being related in some way or another) seems to be subjective, as if it solely exists in our minds and not in the object itself.

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.

What Came First: The Chicken or the Egg? David Hume moves through a logical progression of the ideas behind cause and effect. He critically analyzes the reasons behind those generally accepted ideas. Though the relation of cause and effect seems to be completely logical and based on common sense, he discusses our impressions and ideas and why they are believed. Hume’s progression, starting with his initial definition of cause, to his final conclusion in his doctrine on causality. As a result, it proves how Hume’s argument on causality follows the same path as his epistemology, with the two ideas complimenting each other so that it is rationally impossible to accept the epistemology and not accept his argument on causality. Hume starts by

In this paper I discuss both Hume’s and Anscombe’s view on causation. I begin with Hume and his regularity theory; then I move onto Anscombe where I provide a rebuttal of Hume’s regularity theory, and later I explain how Hume would respond to Anscombe’s objection to Hume’s regularity theory.

     Now Hume proposed that all inferences come from custom, not reasoning. Through custom or habits, we have become accustomed to expect an effect to follow a cause. This is not a rational argument. This argument centers on the theory of constant conjunction, which does not fall under either fork of reason. “All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not reasoning.”(57)

David Hume wrote Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in 1748, right in the middle of the Enlightenment and on the eve of the Industrial and Scientific Revolution. So it only makes sense that some of the ideas and comparisons used are slightly outdated, but science, if anything, helps his argument regarding causality. Hume is ultimately concerned with the origins of causality, how we are able to gain knowledge from causality, and if we can even call the knowledge derived from causality real knowledge. This is essentially the problem of induction, and is a central pillar of Hume's overall philosophy. There are some significant objections to Hume's ideas concerning causality, but they do not hold much clout and are no match for his

Hume’s sun argument consists of us assuming that the sun will rise because it always has. We as humans have a thought process in which we expect certain outcomes to take place purely based on what has happened through past experiences. Hume argues that just because the sun has always risen in the past, that does not justify the possibility that the sun will definitely rise again for the next morning. The sun not actually rise for the next morning is still a possibility. This argument is based on the fact that as humans we tend to believe that actions or events will take place in the future due to the same outcome occurring within past situations that were already experienced.

In other words he is saying that no matter how good or reliable a testimony may be, it can never as it were on the basis of experience be justified to accept that testimony over and against what stands as testimony against the miracle happening. The testimony happens to be the laws of nature themselves. In this sense it is clear that Hume is giving us a priori argument in Part 1 in that he is saying that miracles are contrary to reason. However I think it would be easier to accept this view if Hume had not previously discussed his Induction theory. In regard that he thought that for example that just because the sun has risen every day so far, it does not necessarily follow that the sun will rise tomorrow, we have no rational basis in believing it will. However in regard to miracles he tells us to base our decisions on past experiences, if it is unlikely it is less likely to be true. So in that sense we should also be able to say that based on our past experiences the sun will definitely rise tomorrow? Also if the sun was not to rise, surely that would be a miracle in the sense that it would be a violation of the laws of nature? And what is exactly a violation of natural laws? Dorothy Coleman points out “past experience shows that what are at one time considered violations of natural laws are frequently found

Hume is a philosopher who believes in the Copy Principle. That all ideas derive from vivid

The original Hume formulation simply put is that the future will resemble the past. In that causal relationships observed previously it will continue to apply to similar circumstances. We expect dropping an object will result in it falling, because in the past it has always fallen. Yet we must ask how is this justified? It is always logically possible for a pattern of observations to be broken, no matter how strong or consistent the pattern has been. The only apparent alternative is to justify our inductive beliefs through induction, but this is circular. In the absence of a third option for justification the problem seems to be conclusive: induction has not been justified (Hume section 7). Then there is Nelson Goodman’s

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 foundation for matters of fact are based on Cause and Effect where inferences are uncertain if nothing holds them together thus every effect is a distinct event from its cause (THN, 180). He then divides all reasoning into two categories: demonstrative reasoning (deductive) or that concerning relations of ideas, and moral reasoning that concerning matter of fact and existence. All arguments concerning existence are based on cause and effect where our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience. People instinctively use induction as a way of reasoning. We use evidence from events that happen to us every do to make sense of things that we haven’t experienced or observed. Hume tells us that we must first decide whether the evidence we took from our experiences is any good. If the evidence we gathered gives us reason to believe things we haven’t seen or experienced then are we able to justify these claims? To further explain Hume’s point, we can use the example of having a container full of black balls you presume to be candy. After sampling a few of the balls and deciding that they taste like licorice, you gather that all the items must also taste like licorice. All of the balls you have observed up to this point have tasted like licorice. Inductive reasoning would lead us to believe that since a few of the balls tasted like licorice every other ball must also be licorice. Even though we are assuming that all the balls must taste like licorice it

The pursuit of knowledge and the desire to understand our world in terms of what is and what it is like has been the endeavor of mankind for centuries. One of the main methods used in order understand the reality presented to us is inductive inference. While humanity has no doubt advanced by employing inductive inference, the problem of induction, recognized by David Hume (1711-1776) forces us to question if induction is a justifiable method and in turn what that means concerning the knowledge acquired by its application. The result of the problem of induction is that we cannot rely on past experience to help us understand the past, our current situation or make future

The ultimate question that Hume seems to be seeking an answer to is that of why is that we believe what we believe. For most of us the answer is grounded in our own personal experiences and can in no way be justified by a common or worldly assumption. Our pasts, according to Hume, are reliant on some truths which we have justified according to reason, but in being a skeptic reason is hardly a solution for anything concerning our past, present or future. Our reasoning according to causality is slightly inhibited in that Hume suggests that it is not that we are not able to know anything about future events based on past experiences, but rather that we are just not rationally justified in believing those things that