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Before discussing Hume鈥檚 Problem of Induction - as outlined in his Enquiry concerning human understanding (1711-1776) 鈥?and whether or not this problem can potentially be solved, I will first clarify the concept of inductive reasoning and why, in fact, inductive reasoning is an attractive methodology for science and day-to-day life.





It is the generally held belief that scientific knowledge derives its justification by being based on generalisation from experience. In inductive reasoning one makes a number of observations in a variety of circumstances and infers a new claim or general law based on these impartial observations. For example, after a series of observations that when you kick a baby it will cry, it seems valid to infer that the next baby you kick will cry, or that in general, babies that get kicked will cry. The next baby you kick which starts crying will merely add to this series of observations. This method of inference is attractive as it explains the alleged objectivity of scientific knowledge by reference to the open-mindedness of scientists when making their observations. It also keeps scientific knowledge rooted firmly in experience and opposes the belief that there is any a priori knowledge of matters of fact or innate concepts that all our knowledge of the world is derived from.





Inductive reasoning faces two serious problems. Firstly, regardless of how many impartial observations are recorded, a prediction of a future event will never be completely certain. For example we can never be completely certain 鈥?regardless of whether you were to kick baby after baby and each one cried that the next baby will cry when you kick it, or even possibly, though the sun has risen everyday in the past there can be no certainty that it will rise tomorrow, to be certain, it must be known that the law of nature is immutable. Regardless of this however we bring inductive reasoning in to our everyday lives and, it seems, if we didn鈥檛 we wouldn鈥檛 progress. (An example might be that if I were banking on the uncertainty of the sun rising tomorrow, I probably wouldn鈥檛 be writing this essay.) The second problem, which forms the Problem of Induction, is the fact that the observations themselves do not establish the validity of inductive reasoning, except inductively and this as Hume points out is viciously circular. In other words, observations that inductive reasoning has worked in the past does not imply that it will always work.





Hume outlines the problem of induction in relation to the nature of causation and the laws of nature. He observes that our inductive practices are founded on the relation of cause and effect. However, he analyses this relation and finds that all that this represents 鈥?from an empiricist point of 鈥?is a constant conjunction of events. In other words; the objective content of a posited causal relation is always merely that some regularity or pattern in the behaviour of things holds. It is 鈥?after all 鈥?a perfectly logical possibility that any past regularity will fail to hold in future, the only basis for inductive inference is that the future will resemble the past and this is, in Hume鈥檚 eyes, unjustifiable. In fact, that the future will resemble the past is something only justified by past experience, that is, by induction, and the justification of induction is what is actually being held in question. To put it another way, to justify inductive inference by inductive inference would be analogous to someone attempting to convince someone else that what they are saying is true by saying that they always tell the truth. If Hume鈥檚 claims are correct, this would mean all our supposed scientific knowledge is founded using an irrational methodology.





Hume goes on to claim that what is considered inductive reasoning is not in fact reasoning at all but instead a psychological tendency or habit to form general laws about what has not yet been observed on the basis of what has been observed. He also is sure that even if the problem of induction is learned, people will continue to employ inductive inference in scientific and day-to-day ventures and feels that we can鈥檛 help but to do so in order to live out our lives; he does not however feel that this behaviour can be justified on any rational grounds.





The supposed irrationality Hume sees in inductive inference leads me neatly on to the first of several responses to the Problem of induction, this being that inductive reasoning is rational by definition. The first of the two different versions of this response goes on to say that in everyday life outside of academia people do not use the term 鈥榬ational鈥?to apply only to deductively valid inferences, indeed people often describe things which are inductively inferred as rational. For example, there might be several ways to predict the outcome of a particular rugby team鈥檚 next match. The conceivably rational method 鈥?upon which everyone would seem to agree - would be to look at how the rugby team has performed in its past matches and make an inductive inference. This, however, assumes that the future will be like the past and that nature is uniform and this is unjustifiable in Hume鈥檚 eyes and yet justifiable to all those who consider that, in general it is rational to base beliefs about the future on knowledge of the past. On the other hand the only reason people call it rational is because it has the tendency to lead us to truth and away from falsity and thus conforms to some standard. By merely calling a method of reasoning 鈥榬ational鈥?does not make that mode of reasoning justified, for it doesn鈥檛 establish whether or not the reasoning in question has the other properties that we think rational reasoning to have.





The second more sophisticated version of the above response, instead of appealing to the fact that everyone uses the term 鈥榬ational鈥?to describe induction and so it must be, argues that we are more certain of the general rationality of induction than we are of Hume鈥檚 argument against it. So, we can treat Hume鈥檚 argument like a paradox that leads to a conclusion that can only be false and must therefore have a false premise. This however commits us to the task of working out exactly where the flaw in Hume鈥檚 argument lies. The point, however, is that there must be some flaw in the argument despite our inability to find it.





Another counter argument is that Hume鈥檚 argument is far to general and doesn鈥檛 take in to account anything specific about our inductive practices, i.e. it can only be premised on the fact that it isn鈥檛 deductive. Hume鈥檚 suggestion that in forming expectations about the future behaviour of things we assume that the future will resemble the past seems quite simplistic. It seems there is more to the inductive process than Hume saw. For example we might only need observe something a few times before we conclude that it will always behave similarly, for example when trying a new recipe one might conclude after a few tries that a dish will be tasty in future whilst with other things we would be very cautious about inferring the behaviour of things after many observations. This of course, however, shows only that we need to describe our inductive practices in more detail before considering their justifiability and again, Hume would argue that no matter how complex our inductive practices are they are still hinged on the assumption that the future will resemble the past and are thus unjustifiable.|||Its really good I hope you get an A!!|||****!|||coool essay yaaar


you done gr8 jobb|||I'm not a teacher but that was a brilliant essay.


I'd give you an A* for that. well done.