Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hume & the Postmodern Grin without aCat(was Re: pomoistas)

["Ben B. Day" <bday@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hume simply argues that there's no way to rationally justify our belief in
inductive laws. For example, from everything we've experienced so far, we
know that if we jump off of a ten story building we will fall and die. How
do we know that we won't float slowly and gently to the ground? Simply
based on experience. This is how laws of physics are established - when
through experimentation we find that there are no exceptions to one type
of event following another.
Hume is just saying that it's impossible to rationally demonstrate that,
because X has always followed Y in the past, it will do so in the future.

His next step, of course, is to say that we simply don't and can't rely on
reason in carrying out our daily lives - we rely on our experience, what
has always tended to happen.

This is a bit far afield of pen-l, though, I suppose.

----Ben

On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Ken Hanly wrote:

> I suppose induction could be questioned in the manner of Descartes'
> hyberbolic doubt. There may be real doubt that you will be able to make it
> over thin ice as you walk along a pond in the spring but there is no real
> doubt that you are there and walking in your parka etc. Whereas Descartes
> "doubts" that he is in his dressing gown etc. feeling the warmth of the fire
> etc.
> Descartes himself points out that he is not in practice going to doubt much
> of what he doubts in the Meditations. Going down the road of hyperbolic
> doubt gets you to the malevolent demon and deep questions about whether we
> might not all be brains in vats. I doubt these questions are of great
> practical use as preparation for socialist revolution.
>    Cheers, Ken Hanly
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ted Winslow <winslow@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 2:07 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:1562] Re: Re: Re: Re: Hume & the Postmodern Grin without
> aCat(was Re: pomoistas)
>
>
> > Ken Hanly wrote:
> >
> > > Reason is not capable of really questioning
> > > induction since reason is powerless against such a natural instinct.
> >
> > How then is Hume able to question induction?
> >
> > Ted
> > --
> > Ted Winslow                            E-MAIL: WINSLOW@xxxxxxxx
> > Division of Social Science             VOICE: (416) 736-5054
> > York University                        FAX: (416) 736-5615
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> >
>
>