In today’s post for the sexiest philosophy blog online, I’ll take a look at the fourth section of Hume’s Enquiry, and try to make sense of the so-called “problem of induction”. Hume begins by differentiating those things which are possibly true into either “Relations of Ideas” (true logically, by the parts making up the whole; something like a priori truths discoverable by mere thought) and “Matters of Fact” (true conditionally based upon objective reality). Then he explains that “Matters of Fact” are judged true or false through the use of cause and effect, which is where it gets really interesting (perhaps even sexy, some might say), because he says that the relationship of cause and effect cannot be understood outside of experience (it is not a priori given). But why exactly is that so important?
It’s important because most of what expect and “understand” in our daily lives are based upon the notion of induction, which is to say that we expect similar results from similar actions / situations. We have, every single day of our lives, experienced the law of gravity as true, and so we assume that when he drop a dense object from some height, it will fall downwards towards the surface of the earth. People don’t go skydiving and expect to fly up when they leave the plane. However, since induction is not given a priori, we cannot assume that our natural laws will hold at all times. A good way of understanding this which I have come across in my study of philosophy is a hypothetical example:
Imagine, if you will, an infinite (constructed, not absolute) room full of unlabeled boxes. You have been given the unenviable task of cataloging the contents of all the boxes. You open one box, and in it, you find 30 bags of Munchies Cheese Fix, the greatest snack known to mankind. You open a second box, and you find the same thing. And so forth, up to a million boxes, always finding the 30 bags of the delicious snack. You then leave the room and tell your employer that every box in the infinite room contains 30 bags of Munchies. Would you be justified in saying so? Of course not. The millionth-and-one box may have contained 25 bags of Munchies. Or perhaps it was full of venomous snakes. The point is, you can’t assume, no matter how many times the relationship has held true in the past, that it will hold true in the future. This is the problem of induction.
What Hume is pointing out is that, since everything we know about “Matters of Fact” (which is most of our knowledge) is based on cause-and-effect, which suffers from the problem of induction, then we cannot say for certain that many things we take for granted (all of physics, for example) will continue to hold true in the future. We might be able to say that it is probable, or likely, but we can never say it is definite or certain.
Sexy, sexy stuff.
I find your example of your love for Munchies Cheese Fix in relation to Hume interesting. Our love for a specific food is a consequence of custom and experience. Cause and Effect gives meaning not only to our favorite objects but also our very sanity. What would we do witout custom? It gives structure, meaning and significance to every facet of our existence. We love our famly and friends because we know through custom that they will be there for us in time of need. Whether it be a freind or a bag of chips to keep us company in times of stress, these are the building blocks which keep us sane and productive. Without custom, we live with a huge gap beneath us, living in a constant state of fear and unknowing. Cause and Effect is a philosophical principle engaged with by Hume but to the common man is a a most intimate and essential aspect which keeps us loving our Munchies Cheese Fix
ReplyDeleteHume strongly stresses the notion of “resemblance” when it comes to induction for it is because there is a resemblance between an experience and the current event in which one can rationally predict that a certain outcome is soon to follow. It is preposterous to think that the movement of a billiard balls after collision is a relevant experience for induction when it comes to passing judgment on a matter of gravity. However, Hume notes that, “to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgment, these arguments must be probable only” (22). That is to say, judgments of induction cannot produce any predictions of absolute certainty. If one were to see a similar chain of events numerous times, one can likely believe the next time that the same effect will follow the preceding cause. However, seeing as though the cause and the effect are completely separate and different existence, there is nothing about them that implies an absolute rule of cause and effect. In other words, inductive reasoning can only produce likely conclusions but not definite conclusions and that is the limit of inductive reasoning, and experience ultimately, in regards to the origin of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI think that our love for Munchies Cheese Fix cannot be based on custom and experience. All humans must, necessarily, love Munchies Cheese Fix, because it is objectively the greatest snack ever created. They need not experience the glory of the snack firsthand to know this. All humans are born with this knowledge, a priori
ReplyDeleteI don't really think that induction is a big problem in science. First, induction does not rely on reason. In science, theories are conceived such that they can be falsified. In a room of infinite boxes, you cannot justify that every box will be a Munchies bag. Therefore, while it is logically possible that at least one box doesn't contain Munchies bags, it is an unfalsifiable claim since infinity cannot be measured by any kind of instrument, it is in fact a non sequitur as far as science is concerned.
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