Study Guide

Week Six: Hume’s Problem of Induction

Materials Assigned for the Week
The Central Point of This Week's Material
Other Concepts and Points you are Expected To Master This Week

I. Materials Assigned for the Week

Reading:

Lecture 3: Induction (again), pp. 20-25
Lecture 15: Justified Belief and Hume's Problem of Induction
Lecture 16: Can Hume's Scepticism be Refuted?
Lecture 17: Beyond Foundationalism
Readings: Hume, Induction cannot be rationally justified, pp. 252-260

Exercises:

Review Questions: pp. 190-191, 197, 202-203
Problems for Further Thought: pp. 191, 197 esp. #1

II. The Central Point of This Week's Material

Hume claims that we have no rational justification at all for any of our beliefs about the future or for any other beliefs which go beyond immediate observation (generalisations for instance). With all of them we are operating on blind habit alone. This is scepticism about induction. Inductive arguments do not pretend to provide deductive support for their conclusions (of course), but we have always assumed that they provide some support, inductive support. In fact, however, inductive support provides no support whatsoever for any conclusions. Sober discusses this astonishing thesis and tries to blunt it.

III. Other Concepts And Arguments You Are Expected To Master This Week

What a generalisation is - be able to give a variety of examples and non-examples (with explanations)
How to spell the word "generalisation" - the American spelling is "generalization" with a "z"; the Commonwealth spelling is "generalisation" with an "s"; both are acceptable in 34.101
Such optional spellings are available for most "-ize" / "-ise" pairs: "realize" / "realise", "conceptualize" / "conceptualise", "specialize" / "specialise"
What a prediction is - have examples and non-examples again (with explanations)
In what ways predictions and generalisations both "go beyond the evidence" - i.e. go beyond observations based on current sense experience
Which is the same as to see the difference between scepticism about the objective world and scepticism about induction
What the so-called "Principle of the Uniformity of Nature" (PUN) is - and why it is so hard to articulate usefully
What a circular or question-begging argument is - you now have some powerful examples (e.g. pp. 190, 193, 195, 258-259)
What the thesis of Foundationalism is, more deeply than before - not merely as it occurs in a specific epistemological project such as Descartes', but as a general type of approach to matters of knowledge and justification (see pg. 198)
The idea that there can be different levels of beliefs - and especially the idea that beliefs at one level may be justified entirely by beliefs at lower levels
What a background assumption is - with examples
What "Hume's Fork" is (though you won't have this label for it in Sober): all genuine propositions must either state "relations of ideas" or else state "matters of fact" - be able to classify candidates
What Strawson's defence of inductive reasoning is (pp. 194-195)
What Black's defence of inductive reasoning is (pp. 195-196)
The difference between induction and counter-induction

Contents
Previous Week: Rebuilding Knowledge from the Foundations
Next Week: Dualism and the Mind-Body Problem