PHIL 1110 Lecture 11: Thurs Sep 28 Induction
Document Summary
Induction - a pattern of reasoning where a general law is supported by particular observations. The sun rises each day- only 3 interactions needed to come up with this conclusion. There is no evidence to prove that the unobserved items will in fact act like those that were previously observed. The future is subject to change, and therefore you don"t know that nature is uniform. We don"t observe cause and effect, yet we tend to think in cause and effect. Causes may not exist, we may think that they do, but that doesn"t necessarily mean that they do. eyesight can be replaced with memory and it"s reasoning. Responses to the problem of induction: - aren"t going. Hedge (soften) the conclusion: probably, eggs are fragile. Conclusions drawn by induction are not justified, because induction requires us to assume pun; but pun can be known only by using induction, which assumes pun; this is circular.
