Hume, Skepticism, and Induction

This paper concerns the following interpretative problem: Hume\u27s most explicit arguments in both the Treatise and the Enquiry strongly suggest that he is a skeptic about inductive reasoning. This, indeed, has been the traditional interpretation. And yet, Hume engages in and explicitly endorses inductive reasoning throughout his works. I examine two prominent attempts to reconcile these features of Hume\u27s position. One group of commentators, the descriptivists, argues that Hume is not concerned with whether we ought to accept inductive beliefs; he is only concerned with the psychological causes of such beliefs. Because Hume is not concerned with the normative epistemic question, there is no tension in his text. Another group, the externalists, takes Hume to be engaged in an epistemological project; they even acknowledge the skeptical potential of Hume\u27s arguments, but they reject the idea that Hume is a skeptic about induction because they find in Hume an externalist strategy of justification which offers an escape from the skeptical conclusion. I criticize these readings on both textual and conceptual grounds. Against the descriptivist, I argue that Hume is indeed engaged in normative epistemology. Against externalist, I argue that Hume offers no broad solution to skepticism about induction. I defend the following interpretation: Hume endorses skepticism about induction in philosophical reflection. Against the background of modern epistemic contextualism, I argue that Hume appeals to multiple standards for belief justification depending on the context of the investigation. Hume repeatedly announces the success of the skeptic in destroying even our strongest beliefs, but only in cases of philosophical reflection: when we examine the fundamental justification of our beliefs. But he also insists that the power of the skeptic is destroyed when the inquiry shifts to practical matters: when the context of inquiry is that of common life. These multiple justificatory standards explain the apparent conflict between Hume\u27s skepticism and endorsement of induction. I conclude that this contextualist reading of Hume\u27s work offers both the strongest philosophical position for Hume, as well as an interpretation which sacrifices relatively little of the traditional impact of Hume\u27s skeptical arguments

Hume\u27s skepticism.

David Hume has traditionally been regarded as a skeptic, perhaps the most formidable in the history of Western philosophy. Since the publication of Norman Kemp Smith\u27s Philosophy of David Hume in 1941, however, there has been an increasing tendency to downplay the skeptical dimension of Hume\u27s philosophy, in some cases to the point of denying that Hume is a serious skeptic, or even a skeptic at all. Much of the motivation for a nonskeptical reading of Hume comes from recognition of his endorsement of empirical science and his own project of founding a science of man. Recent scholarship has, in my opinion correctly, recognized Hume as a constructive rather than a purely destructive thinker. Yet this recognition has, in my opinion incorrectly, gone hand in hand with a tendency to overlook or deny the skeptical side of Hume\u27s thought. In this work, I address the issue of Hume\u27s skepticism. I believe that though the issue of Hume\u27s skepticism is more complicated than is suggested by some of those who interpret him as a skeptic, nevertheless the traditional view is more true to Hume\u27s texts than is a nonskeptical interpretation. I argue, on the basis of a reading of the Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic with regard to much of our alleged knowledge. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that (i) Hume\u27s skeptical pronouncements are in general sincere, not ironic, (ii) Hume\u27s skepticism extends to a large part of our alleged knowledge, and (iii) Hume\u27s skepticism is a result of his substantive philosophical views. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that though Hume doesn\u27t prescribe eschewal of beliefs that are not rationally justified, he thinks that much of our alleged knowledge essentially involves beliefs that cannot be rationally justified and that hence much of our alleged knowledge is not knowledge at all

Hume’s Academic Scepticism: A Reappraisal of His Philosophy of Human Understanding

A philosopher once wrote the following words:If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real situation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them, in my conception, the same relations, that they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there seems to be always a real, though often an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or falsehood variable by the various apprehensions of mankind. Though all human race should for ever conclude, that the sun moves, and the earth remains at rest, the sun stirs not an inch from his place for all these reasonings; and such conclusions are eternally false and erroneous

Skepticism as Epistemic Naturalization

Responses to radical philosophical skepticism often interpret skeptical arguments as conceptual challenges that must be overcome if common epistemic practices are to remain justifiably practicable. Such responses treat skeptical arguments as attacks on our ability to justifiably make knowledge claims, wherein the skeptic attempts to isolate conceptual problems embedded in common epistemic processes that debar those processes from the potential to produce knowledge. In this framework, the successful skeptic reveals our constitutional epistemic blindness while the successful response defangs the skeptic’s attack on our capacity for knowledge. This paper argues that this interpretation is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the target and method of radical skepticism. Analyzing the skeptical projects of Sextus Empiricus and David Hume serves to identify a set of conceptual strategies commonly identified with “radical skepticism” that rely on pitting empirical evidence against a demanding concept of knowledge and concluding from the incongruence which emerges that the concept is unrealizable. Far from an attack on everyday knowledge claims, the overlapping strategies of these writers produce an overarching project of empirical skepticism which privileges common epistemic practices over extant philosophical definitions of knowledge by using the former to argue for the incoherence of the latter. Using the epistemic contextualism of Michael Williams as an example of a typical response that treats skepticism as a challenge to everyday knowledge claims places the nature of the common confusion between the skeptic’s target and argument in stark relief. Williams’ main criticism, that the skeptic conflates an unrealizable standard for knowledge with functional everyday standards, results in an epistemological theory which shares multiple similarities with the conclusions of empirical skepticism as described by Sextus and Hume. Williams’ worry that the skeptic demands unreasonably high standards of justification for knowledge is shared by the skeptic because it is precisely those standards that are integral to the concept of knowledge” which the skeptic aims to reveal as incoherent. At its terminus, empirical skepticism emerges as a prototypical attempt at epistemic naturalization through its swapping of a faulty conceptual analysis of knowledge with an empirical analysis of epistemic processes

Hume's scepticism regarding reason

There is a tradition perhaps as old as philosophy itself which sees the rationality of man – and in particular, the rationality of the philosopher - as both his essential and his redeeming characteristic; it can not unfairly be said that the discipline of philosophy at least is characterised by its dependence on reason. In this context, the philosophy of David Hume presents something of a stark challenge: Although interpretations vary as to the extent and nature of his scepticism, one of the themes of his work is the limits and imperfections of human reason and the sceptical concerns this engenders. On Hume's system, reason is not the overlord of the imagination but at least in part subordinate to it, and can discover little or nothing without recourse to experience. My aim here is to pinpoint the true nature of Hume's scepticism regarding reason, drawing chiefly on the Treatise but also to a lesser extent the Enquiry. After a brief overview of his project in the Treatise in section 1, I go on to give an account of Hume's conception of reason or the understanding, and the epistemological distinction between demonstrative and probable reasoning, in section 2. In section 3 I examine Hume's famous argument concerning induction, arguing that to read Hume as a sceptic regarding inference is a mistake and that to say induction is grounded in principles of the imagination is not to say that it is therefore irrational. In section 4 I examine the argument of Treatise 1.4.1, 'Of scepticism with regard to reason', and in section 5 the 'dangerous dilemma' to which it leads Hume in 1.4.7, arguing that whilst his treatment of the issues it raises is somewhat unsatisfactory in this section of the Treatise a better solution can be fashioned by appealing to a distinction between the general and the trivial properties of the imagination drawn elsewhere in both the Treatise and the Enquiry. Then in section 6 I conclude by offering my own attempt at characterising the extent of Hume's scepticism regarding reason, arguing that his “mitigated” scepticism is a scepticism about knowledge but not about belief, and that its chief aim is to ensure that we philosophise only on those subjects which are suitable for enquiry given the limits and frailties of our faculties; the “reflections of common life, methodized and corrected” (Enquiry 12.25, p.208) rather than “divinity” or “school metaphysics” (Enquiry 12.34, p.211)

Cognitive Autocracy of the Object as a Theoretical Presupposition of Foundational Analyses in Epistemology: A Historical Review

A historical review of epistemology was carried out. The objective of the study was to demonstrate through historical data that the underlying presupposition that rules epistemological analysis is the cognitive autocracy of the object. To achieve this objective, the method of content analysis with a special focus on the traditional historical method was adopted for the study. With the application of the historical method to the data of study, it was easy to demonstrate the validity of the thesis that epistemology is bedevilled by the cognitive autocracy of the object. It was concluded that the problem associated with the presupposition could be obviated if behavioural constructivism as a new approach to epistemology could be switched for rational reductionism

Critical Foundations of the Contextual Theory of Mind

The contextual mind is found attested in various usages of the term complement, in the background of Kant. The difficulties of Kant's intuitionism are taken up through Quine, but referential opacity is resolved as semantic presence in lived context. A further critique of rationalist linguistics is developed from Jakobson, showing generic functions in thought supporting abstraction, binding and thereby semantic categories. Thus Bolzano's influential philosophy of mathematics and science gives way to a critical view of the ancient heritage acknowledged by Plato.\ud \u

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe goal of this dissertation is to offer an empirically informed evaluation of testimony as a source of knowledge. Epistemologists have assumed that testimony is a generally reliable source of true beliefs because human cognitive faculties would have evolved to be reliable at getting the truth. However, complementary evidence from the signaling theory and social psychology literature shows that testimony is a practical tool with a variety of nonepistemic functions, including forming and maintaining social relationships, coordinating group behavior, and prescribing conduct. Since the value of using testimony is very often independent of its accuracy, humans have evolved to expend as little resources on checking for accuracy as is necessary to satisfy their other needs. In other words, "truth is expendable" to humans trying to get along well in the world and with each other. This implies that testimony is a far less epistemically reliable source of information than philosophers have assumed, and although it is very often prudent to simply believe what people say, it is not epistemically rational to do so. At the end, I offer preliminary empirically informed prescriptions for judging the reliability of testimony

Jurisprudence and Structural Realism

Some Anglophone legal theorists look to analytic philosophy for core presuppositions. For example, the epistemological theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Willard Quine shape the theories of Dennis Patterson and Brian Leiter, respectively. These epistemologies are anti-foundational since they reject the kind of certain grounding that is exemplified in Cartesian philosophy. And, they are coherentist in that they seek to legitimate truth-claims by reference to entire linguistic systems. While these theories are insightful, the current context of information and communication technologies (ICT) has created new informational concepts and issues. As a result, the analytic epistemologies are increasingly challenged by alternative perspectives. One such alternative is Structural Realism (SR), which is influential among the natural sciences, and especially physics. Informational Structural Realism, (ISR) is a variant of SR that was introduced by Luciano Floridi. Unlike the coherentist theories, ISR promotes examination of the connections among types of information and informational structures. It is an important shift for legal theory today, since the challenges that the ICT presents have to do with pattern recognition across vast domains of diverse data. An informational jurisprudence is now required to understand the issues emerging from the ICT