Welcome to the fourth General Philosophy lecture. Today, we're going to be talking a little bit more about induction, but mainly about scepticism.
I'm focussing on induction in connexion with scepticism,
partly because Hume's argument concerning induction is such a vivid and such a highly respected and influential form of scepticism.
But also, as you'll see later, I think it's a particular form of scepticism that cannot be answered in one very influential,
influential way that is very popular today.
Therefore, it faces us with a real quandary what do we do?
And I will be sketching what I consider to be perhaps the best approach to scepticism.
Here we've got Descartes Pascale, who will be making an appearance later David Hume, Karl Popper and Imua.
So we've looked at some of the attempts to justify induction.
That is to give an answer to Hume's sceptical argument.
And one of the methods that I mentioned last time but didn't discuss was the so-called inductive justification of induction.
Now this was originated, I think, by Max Black. He quite influential, he argued that induction can be justified.
Inductively without vicious circularity by distinguishing between an inductive rule and an inductive premise.
So recall that in Hume's argument, Hume focuses on what's commonly called the uniformity principle,
the principle that the future will resemble the past.
And it looks like at least many people have interpreted Hume as thinking of that as a premise or a suppressed premise,
at least implicitly there in any inductive inference.
Maybe we can get round the worry of circularity, if instead we think in terms of an inductive rule,
a rule that takes us from a premise about the past to a conclusion about the future.
Now, I'll be saying a little about that in a moment.
It's this approach is of particular interest to you because in your reading list, there's an article by Van Cleave,
a very interesting and rather difficult article by vanity in which he adopts the inductive justification.
But he also combines it with external ism, which will be a major focus of the second half of this lecture.
One point I just want to make about Van Teves paper, however, is that there is a clear misunderstanding of Hume within it.
He takes it that Hume is a deductive is that when Hume asks for the uniformity principle and says, Where's the basis for that?
That Hume is thinking of inductive inferences as presupposing a uniformity principle on the ground that without such a principle,
an inductive inference would not be valid, would not be deductibility valid.
And I want to point out that that is a mistake. Hume should not be understood as merely saying that inductive inference is on non deductive.
That is that whenever you have an inductive inference, all of the premises could be true.
And yet the conclusion turned out to be false, right? That's a fairly minimal kind of scepticism.
Induction isn't infallible. Well, we all know that. But actually, I think Hume's argument is far more radical.
He's saying, Can you give any reason, whatever? Not just the deductive reasoning.
Any kind of reason for supposing that what's happened in the past is evidently relevant
gives some kind of reliable guidance about what's going to happen in the future.
And recall that in humans argument, he rules out intuition.
He says it's not self-evident. He rules out sensation. You can't tell by looking at objects how they're going to behave.
Think of the atom thought experiment. You can't give a deductive argument for saying that the future will resemble the past.
And nor can you give an inductive argument because that would be circular.
So Hume thinks he's ruled out all possible types of evidence, not just deductive.
So the argument is seriously worrying or potentially seriously worrying if it cannot be defeated.
So Hume is asking, do we have any rational basis, whatever, for taking the observed as relevant evidence about the unobserved?
And if you look at it with that generality, then the difference between an inductive premise and an inductive rule really is beside the point.
That's a fuelling difference. Both of them are treating the past as evidentially relevant to the future.
Hume is asking, What right do we have to do that?
So I don't think the inductive justification stands much chance of refuting him.
A quite different approach, and this is again on your reading list.
Karl Popper argued he actually accepted Hume's argument.
He said, Yeah, Hume's right. There is no justification for induction.
But he argued that we can do without induction, but science can progress perfectly well without any inductive assumption.
So instead of arguing from past to future, saying that such and such as happened in the past,
therefore such and such will probably happen in the future. What we should focus on is making hypotheses, bold conjectures and then refuting them.
So instead of trying to get a conclusion that is justified by the past,
instead we make bold conjectures and then we knock out those that are actually refuted by our experience.
So this is deductive logic, not inductive. Now illustrate that now.
So suppose we've got various theories about AIDS, so some of these are BS, some as a CS or might be.
And here are our various theories. The theory at the top says always are BS.
The next one says, is alternate between BS and CS, and you can see there are various other possible theories that.
OK. So let's suppose we observe the first a A1 turns out to be a B.
Well, that knocks out Theory six, Theory six said it was going to be a sea, it's turned out to be a B.
That theory was wrong. So assuming we can trust our observations, Theory six has been seductively refuted.
This isn't a matter of induction. Right? It said a one would be a C, but in fact one was a B.
So the theory is knocked out deductive Lee. OK.
What about a two? Well, that's a B as well, so that knocks out theories two, four and five.
We're now only left with two theories one and three. And as you might expect, a three turns out to be A to B, A B as well, which knocks out Theory C.
So we started out with six possible theories and our observations have eliminated five of them.
There's only one of them left fine. So, according to Popper, science can work in this way.
We make bold conjectures, knock out the ones that are refuted by experience.
And then we go with the ones that are left. And according to Popper, this enables us to do science without any inductive assumption, and hence,
although Popper thinks Hume is correct about induction, that induction has no rational foundation.
We can still do science. Now, I want to suggest things aren't so simple.
Because what we can do. We started off with six theories. What I've done here, I've taken those six theories and I've simply amended them.
We looked at the first three days and they all turned out to be BS.
So five of the theories were wrong in one way or another.
Well, I've just amended them here. I've just changed those theories, so they all now correctly assert that the first three days will be BS.
So we've now got six theories again, six contending theories.
Let's go on now on observe A4, A5 and so on.
Now you're all thinking this is crazy. Surely we should go for theory one.
But I want to suggest to you that the reason you're inclined to go for theory one is precisely that you are thinking inductive inductively.
You are thinking that the fact that A1A two a three were all BS gives us good reason to suppose that the rest will be BS.
But Popper is saying that it's no good. We're not supposed to rely on induction. We're not supposed to assume that the future will resemble the past.
In which case, why can't we just doctor the other theories by correcting them?
Isn't that the rational thing to do when you find your theory is wrong in certain respects, you tweak it.
Now, without induction, it's hard to see why a theories having been refuted in the past.
Gives us reason to suppose that its future predictions won't come out, right?
Now, Poppa says this is ad hoc. Yes, it is ad hoc, in a sense, what we're doing, we're taking those theories.
And in the light of what proved to be wrong about the movie tweaking them.
But unless we believe in some kind of inductive assumption, it's not clear why that's bad.
Now, you might say, well, we should go for the simplest theory, we should go for the theory that predicts all laser bees,
at least in the light of having so far experienced as all being these, because that's the simplest theory.
Yeah, maybe that's quite plausible.
But if you're going to favour simple theories, then obviously induction is pretty simple, you assume that the future will resemble the past.
That is obviously has a certain kind of simplicity.
And if you've got a rational ground for doing that, then you ought to be able to provide some justification of induction.
So Hume's argument wouldn't be successful, after all.
So I suggest that poppers weigh out saying Hume's argument works, but we can get away without induction actually fails.
We still have this problem of trying to justify induction. If we could do that via a preference for simplicity, that would be great.
But it looks like a preference for simplicity may be no more justifiable than
a preference for theories that say the same about the future as the past.
OK, now I'm going to move on to the the last attempt to answer him that we're going to be considering the the pragmatic justification of induction.
But I want to introduce that slightly obliquely by clarifying the difference between an epistemic and a pragmatic justification.
So when we talk about a belief or a theory being epistemic Li justified,
we mean that we have evidence that makes it likely to be true reason to believe it.
But when we talk about pragmatic justification, we're talking about typically action, something that we are doing and we are justified in doing it.
Now, insofar as belief is subject to our control and that could be debated, how far our belief is subject to our control.
It will come back to that a bit later than you might say.
It's reasonable to adopt beliefs, which we have no good epistemic reason to believe.
Now, this is controversial. Many of you would be appalled, perhaps at the idea that you might take on a belief because it enables you to achieve
something rather than because you've actually got an epistemic reason for believing it.
But Blaise Pascal famously gave an argument of exactly this kind, known as Pascal's wager.
So here's how the argument goes We've got two possibilities either God exists or God doesn't exist.
And I'm faced with this decision, shall I believe in God? And let's suppose for the moment that that is up to my choice,
that I would be able to take on a belief in God if I decided that that was a good pragmatic thing to do.
OK, so I've got the choice between believing and not believing. Well, if God exists and I believe, then it's going to have some impact on my life.
You know, I'll be going to church on Sundays, for example, I'll be praying. I'll be living as self-denying life in certain ways.
But on the other hand, when I die, I can look forward to eternal bliss in heaven.
If I believe, but God doesn't exist, then I'm going to have that self-denying life,
not an awful life, but just one in which I give up some of the things that I might otherwise do.
And when I die, that's it. What about if I don't believe?
Well, if I don't believe, maybe I'll have a more enjoyable life? Because I won't be wasting that time on Sunday, I can go down the pub or whatever.
But then when I die, sadly, you're going to have eternal hellfire because God will throw me into the burning pit.
On the other hand, if gold doesn't exist, I'll have my enjoyable life, and then when I die, that's it.
Nothing more.
OK, now, just to make it vivid, suppose we're in the situation where we have examined the arguments for and against the existence of God.
And maybe we've come to the to the conclusion that the chance of God existing is is one in a thousand nought point one percent chance that God exists.
Very likely there is no God. But Pascal's argument says, here we've got a gamble.
OK, we've got a nine hundred and ninety nine chances that God doesn't exist, one chance that he does, but look at the pay offs.
Look at the pay offs. If I if gold does exist in that one thousand chance where gold does exist.
The payoff, if I believe, is plus infinity and the payoff, if I don't, is minus infinity.
Whereas if God doesn't exist, either way, the payoff is maybe plus one and minus one, something like, you know, relatively.
It's a certainly finite amount.
So even if the chances the epistemic chances are against God existing, even if the evidence that I have suggests that God existence is very unlikely,
I'm better off taking the gamble on believing because the payoffs are so large.
So it's like, suppose somebody says. Throw.
Here are two dice. If they both come up sixth, then I'll I'll give you 100 pounds.
And you're thinking and they say you only have to pay five pounds to play this game.
What do you might be a bit tempted by that,
that you shouldn't be OK because the payoff is 20 times the stake and the chance of getting to 60 is the only one in thirty six.
But if they say throw these two dice, if they both come up six, I'll give you a million pounds.
Yes, thank you, I will play that game as often as you like because the payoff is so much greater compared with the the original stake.
If you compare that with the chance of winning and it's the same principle here,
if you've got an infinite payoff, even a small chance of winning makes it worth taking the gamble.
So I mentioned at the beginning that you might be you might question whether it's even possible for somebody to voluntarily take on a belief.
If I've looked at all the arguments and I'm convinced that God is very unlikely,
but then somebody says, Oh, but look, you'd be much better off believing, what am I going to do?
Well, Pascal does actually address that. He says, you spend lots of time reading holy books, lots of spend,
lots of time with other Christians, but you will come to believe and maybe that's plausible.
But you might think this is just dishonest, deciding to believe something because of the payoff, not because you've actually got reason to believe it.
Well, maybe, but when we're addressing scepticism, we're not in the position that Pascal is postulating here in respect of God.
If we're facing scepticism, it might be not that we've got.
A probability is telling us not to believe something, but nevertheless wanting to believe it, if we're facing scepticism,
we might be in a situation where we literally have no evidence either way where we think, Oh, we can't know anything here.
What shall I believe then?
And maybe in that case, it is more reasonable to take a pragmatic line, no scepticism leaves open that anything could be the case.
Well, in that case, I'm going to choose my beliefs by what makes me comfortable.
What makes me get on with my life without worrying and so forth? It's not so obvious that that's an unreasonable thing to do.
And notice, I mentioned the ancient sceptics a bit in the in the first couple of lectures.
They typically saw the aim of scepticism as being a certain kind of tranquillity what they called after Axia.
And you can see how taking this sort of approach to scepticism might indeed leave you with a certain form of tranquillity.
That is, if I can't know anything. Well, I'm just going to get on with my life adopting a comfortable set of beliefs that I can live with,
and I'm going to stop worrying about them because I've realised that there's nothing I can do.
OK, now, having got clear on the difference between epistemic and a pragmatic justification,
let's look briefly at the so-called pragmatic justification of induction.
Now, this is a little bit different in that Reichenbach, who promoted this form of justification.
He wasn't saying we cannot know anything and therefore we just have to gamble.
What he was saying was that induction has a particular merit.
We might not know whether induction will lead us to true beliefs.
But he gave an argument for saying that if any method at all will lead us to true beliefs, induction will.
So we've got good grounds for using induction because it's our best bet.
So he's giving epistemic grounds for thinking that induction is our best bet.
Even if we can't give an epistemic ground for saying that induction will work, it looks like we've still got pragmatic reason for going with it.
So the way Reichenbach framed this was, let's suppose that there is some rule and we want to discover what the correct rule is.
So the rule might be, for example, that 61 per cent of A's are.
And then you can imagine different ways of inferring from the past, drawing conclusions about the likely proportion of aliens that are these.
And what Reichenbach aims to show is that doing this inductively, just inferring the same for the future as you have observed in the past.
That will reach the correct proportion, if any rule will.
But I want to suggest there's a fundamental problem here.
There's a problem with the way that Reichenbach has framed the whole discussion because when he says,
let's try and find a rule, you know, X percent of AIDS are BS.
He is implicitly looking for a role that is consistent over time.
So he's actually framed it in such a way that induction is built into his assumptions.
So I think he's taking it for granted. He's taking induction for granted in his framing of the problem.
And there's another perhaps more fundamental issue about a pragmatic justification of induction.
Think of what Hume says about induction. Does Hume say we should stop reasoning inductively, having come out with his sceptical argument?
No, he doesn't. Indeed, he doesn't think stopping reasoning inductively is even an option for us.
If I see a followed by B again and again and again, and then I see a, I just find myself expecting a B,
whether I like it or not, belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances.
It is an operation of the soul when we are so situated as unavoidable as to feel
the passion of love when we receive benefits or hatred when we meet with injuries.
All these operations are a species of natural instincts,
which no reasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent.
So think back to the second lecture, we are evolved beings, our faculties have evolved from those of animals.
We naturally react in certain ways and if we see one thing followed by another again and again and again, we see the one, we expect the other.
That's it. That's the way we work. We can't help it.
Now, if humans write that we really can't help it, then what is the point of a pragmatic justification?
Isn't that the ultimate pragmatic justification? I can't help it.
If you can't help it, then you don't need any other justification.
Of course, this all this is all likely still to feel somewhat unsatisfactory.
We yearn for some epistemic justification for our fundamental method of inference.
But so far, we haven't been able to find one.
So let's now transition to another way of looking at sceptical concerns and focussing less on our
attempts to justify our own reasoning and looking more from an outside an external perspective.
So now we're going to move from the intern list approach, which has dominated our discussion so far to look at external ism.
So internal, its justification that is justifying our faculties through our own thinking might well seem to be utterly hopeless.
Recall what Hume says about Descartes in enquiry twelve point three.
Just says if you start out doubting your own faculties,
then you've had it because the only way you could possibly justify your faculties is by using your faculties.
And if your diffident of those, then you've got nothing to use.
But let's suppose we give up on that, we give up on trying to justify our own faculties,
but just consider the different situation of a creature which does in fact have reliable faculties,
whether or not it's able to prove that and the creature which does not have reliable faculties.
Surely the former is in a better epistemic situation than the latter.
There is a relevant difference between having reliable faculties as opposed to unreliable faculties, even if you can't prove which one you have.
Animals, for example, are animals, many of them have excellent faculties, think of a dog's nose, it's great cognitive faculty.
The dog can discover all sorts of things using smell.
But the dog can't justify the claim that it has a reliable nose.
You know, it may or may not have one, but if it has one, it can't prove it.
Does that mean that the dog is in a worse epistemic situation? Well, arguably not.
So this leads us to external ism. So an external list account of justification or knowledge,
an external list account focuses on the actual connexion between our beliefs and the truth, not on our ability to prove that connexion.
So reliable ism is a very common form of external ism, basically, we say that somebody is justified externally,
stickley in having a belief if there is a reliable connexion between their belief and their truth, irrespective of whether they're able to prove it.
So where is the internal list like? Descartes says, I'm going to start doubting everything, all my senses and everything,
unless I can prove them to be reliable from an external perspective.
We're going to treat someone as justified if their beliefs are reliable, if they're sensory, beliefs are reliable, even if they can't prove it.
And so clearly an animal whose nose or eyes are reliable, you know, imagine the eagle got very fine sight of a dog.
Very fine smell. We will also allow the eagle and the dog to have justified beliefs,
maybe even knowledge on the basis of the reliability of their faculties, even though they can't prove them to be reliable.
So externally, Jim, is particularly popular as applied to perception.
If my eyes do, in fact, give reliable information about external objects, then on the external list account,
what I see can justify my beliefs about the external world and thus yield knowledge even if I cannot prove that my eyes are reliable.
So a dog can know that its master is approaching when it knows correctly tells it that its master is approaching.
The dog can't know that it knows, but nevertheless it can know.
And this actually brings us to one quite powerful argument in favour of external ism, because you might think.
Actually, you know, this is a very inferior kind of knowledge in order to really know something, you've got to be able to know that, you know.
And that's quite tempting. The idea that knowing that P is true requires knowing that, you know that P is true,
but you can probably see that that quickly leads to an infinite regress. If in order to know that p, i have to know that I know that P.
Then in order to know that, I know that I have to know that, I know that, I know that.
And that's going to go on to infinity.
And surely it is not possible for me or anyone else to know that I know that, I know that I know Google Times and that's 10 to 100, that p right?
I simply cannot maintain a belief that complex, let alone have knowledge of it.
So basically insisting that in order to know something, you always have to know that,
you know, is not on and what the external it says is cut that regret at the very first point.
Just don't insist that in order to know anything, in order for the dog to know that its master is nearby,
deny that the dog has to know that it knows it doesn't. It can just know it on the basis of reliable faculties.
Now, another argument that can be used in favouring external ism own external ism wasn't really popular at the time.
Moore was writing External ism came in very much towards the end of the 20th century,
but we can use Moore's argument as a way of motivating an external approach.
So again, this is a paper that's on your reading list.
I mean, it seems like a very crude argument goes like this. OK, I'm going to prove that there's an external world.
In order to prove that there's an external world, all I need to do is prove that there is that there exists at least one external object.
Right? Well, there's one hand. There's another.
If this is a hand. A genuine hand, then there is an external world, therefore, that the external world.
Would Descartes be impressed? Of course not, Descartes would say. But you might be dreaming.
There might be an evil demon and you might think at first sight an argument like this is just pathetic.
Ridiculous. But actually, let's look a little bit deeper and think about the logic of the situation.
So I want to introduce to you two logical rules you've probably come across, at least the first of these, they're given Latin names.
Been around a long time. One of them's called modus phonons, the modus ponant says that if he implies Q and P is true, it follows that Q is true.
Yeah. Very straightforward. The other one mode is, Collins says, that if P implies Q and Q is false, then P is false.
So in one case, we're arguing from truth to truth, from left to right and the other.
We're arguing from falsehood to falsehood, right to left.
And you can probably see those are both logically valid.
OK. I mean, if the truth of P implies the truth of Q.
And cue isn't true, then he can't have been true because if it had been, Q would have had to be true to.
Right, so so the two go together and there's a common saying in philosophy that one person's mode opponents is another person's modus tomlin's.
In other words, you can have two people who agree that P implies Q, but they can argue in different directions,
one person can say, Well, I know P and therefore I'm going to infer Q, and the other person can say, No, you don't.
I know, cuz false. So therefore, PS false.
So it's important to realise that when you prove an implication from P to Q that might not be being used to support Q,
it might be being used to undermine P. So now let's consider the conditional.
That's implicit in Moore's argument. If I know this is a hand, then I know there's an external world.
Moore is saying I do know this is a hand. Therefore, I do know there's an external world.
The sceptic is saying, I don't know that there's an external world.
Therefore, I don't know that this is a hand. And in that situation, you might say, well, you know, here there's a standoff.
But actually, this is this is inviting you to consider, which do you consider more plausible?
P, which is most premise or not, Q, which is the sceptics premise.
And maybe it's enough to defeat the sceptic that we probably find P.
I know this is a hand more plausible than not, Q I don't know.
There's an external world. Now, let's suppose we are tempted to go with more here.
We like the idea that we really do indeed know that this is a hand and we prefer
that to the hypothesis that we don't know that there's an external world.
Appealing to external ism could give you a way of making sense of this.
You could say, OK, if we go for external ism about knowledge, then external ism does leave open.
It explains how it could be that I know this is a hand if external ism is correct and my faculties are in fact generally reliable.
I can't prove that they are, you know? For all I know, there could be an evil demon for all I know, I could be dreaming and all that.
But nevertheless, if my faculties are reliable as I believe they are.
Then from an external point of view, I do know that this is a hand.
And that is something that we could maintain to be the case that can be combined with Moore's answer to the sceptic to say,
OK, I can't prove this is a hand. But I do, in fact, think that I do know this is a hand.
So external ism can answer sceptical worries in a way.
So, I mean, if the sceptic is saying it's impossible to have any knowledge.
External ism does provide an answer there. It says no knowledge is possible if my faculties are reliable, then I have knowledge.
For example, is a hand. Therefore knowledge is possible.
Doesn't show I actually have knowledge because the might be an evil demon, in which case I don't actually know it's a hand.
But if my faculties are in fact reliable as I think they are, then I do have knowledge.
So I can't know that I know. But I can say, perhaps I do know the sceptic who is trying to deny any possibility of knowledge is refuted.
But notice that external ism does not refute the sceptic who simply says, I don't think, in fact you do have knowledge.
It may refute the sceptic who says knowledge is impossible. But it doesn't refute the sceptical worry that I might, in fact, be a brain in a VAT.
Or there might be some evil demon deceiving me, and maybe I don't have any knowledge at all.
So external ism doesn't refute scepticism.
You can still be subject to sceptical doubt from the inside, even if you adopt an external position on knowledge and justification.
OK, now let's combine external ism and induction.
As indeed, Van Cleave does, so Van Cleave proposes an external exit approach to the problem of the justification of induction.
We've already seen how external ISM gives quite a plausible account of knowledge in the case of the senses.
Let's now see if it can do the same magic with induction.
So applying external ism to induction,
it suggests that induction can be considered justified from an external point of view if the world is such as to make inductive predictions,
probably true. For example, because the world in fact, behaves consistently over time.
A notice that this potentially gets around Hume's problem because it says, OK, we can't prove this, we can't prove the future will resemble the past.
But if in fact the future will resemble the past, that means the world is such that inductive inferences will be reliable,
then we can treat them as justified and potentially yielding knowledge.
But I want to suggest that there is a. There is a worry here, a specific worry to do with induction, which is not present in the case of sensation.
So the external list about inductive justification claims that if induction is in fact reliable, then inductive inferences can give justified beliefs.
But look at those words is in fact. Is in fact.
Do you mean has been so far? Do you mean will be in the future?
Those are different things. And the inductive sceptic is saying.
Maybe the world hasn't acted uniformly so far. Why suppose it will in the future?
And then the external response just seems to be saying, well, if the world goes on acting in a uniform way,
then you are justified in believing that it will go on acting in a uniform way.
And that seems rather unsatisfactory, it's as though simply the truth of uniformity is sufficient for the justification of uniformity.
Well, sorry, justification of the belief in uniformity. And we.
We're likely to be rather unhappy with that, we think of the the justification of a belief has to be more than just it, to me, a truth.
And in the case of induction, it's not clear that external ism provides a way of satisfying that.
So contrast it with sense perception.
In the case of sense perception, the external list condition that our senses operate so is to give us reliable information about external objects.
So, you know, when I think there's a glass that there really is a glass there.
That's a fact, a fact about my sense is whose endurance over time can potentially underwrite my future perception.
Right. My senses are in fact reliable. I expect that that will continue into the future, that's an inductive inference,
but here we're not questioning induction, we're questioning my senses. And if it will continue into the future,
then my sense is will continue to be reliable and can in fact give me justified belief and knowledge from the external perspective.
But in the case of induction, the external list condition,
the thing that is supposed to underwrite the justification of my inductive beliefs just is that the way things behave will endure over time.
There's no independent fact available. So either way, we just seem to be taking induction for granted.
And I want to flesh out this point. Suppose I feel sceptical worries about induction, right?
I've read him, I think, oh my goodness, this is a worry and somebody comes up and says, Well, don't worry about it,
Peter, because if the world does in fact continue to act uniformly, then you can be said to have known that it will.
Oh, that's no help. If I'm worried about the world acting uniformly to be told, Oh, well, he does act uniformly, no problem.
I'm sorry. The problem is whether it will. That is my worry.
So I'm looking I'm in asking the sceptical question.
I'm looking for more than mere reliability from an external point of view.
I want some kind of first personal, reflective understanding that will give me epistemic assurance of continued uniformity.
So in asking a sceptical worry?
Sorry, in facing a sceptical worry, asking a sceptical question of myself, I'm expressing a worry which is not like anything that a dog could express.
The mere external list reply does not give me the kind of satisfaction that I'm looking for.
OK. So where are we left then in addressing scepticism and I'm going to finish off
by sketching an approach which seems to me to be Hume's considered approach.
And also, I think, a very appropriate way of dealing with the problem.
And Hume is not external. I mean, I don't think anybody in the early modern period, frankly, is externalised.
A lot of people who build on Hume's philosophy these days find external themes there.
So I'm not suggesting that external ism is contrary to the spirit of Hume's philosophy.
On the contrary, I think actually there's plenty of stuff there that you can use to motivate external list approaches.
But I think Hume's ultimate approach to induction is not an external one.
He actually gives away of facing up to sceptical doubts.
And if you like living with them, but without resorting to external ism.
Recall again, his criticism of Descartes. Descartes says we should distrust all our faculties unless we're able to prove them to be reliable.
Hume says that's hopeless because unless you use your faculties, there's no way you could prove them to be reliable.
So you put yourself in a pit with no means of escape.
And he suggests that a better approach to scepticism rather than antecedent scepticism is consequent scepticism.
So instead of starting out sceptical and trying to prove our faculties reliable,
instead, what we're going to do is trust our faculties until they prove us false.
So there is another species of scepticism consequent to science and enquiry when
men are supposed to have discovered either the absolute salaciousness of their
mental faculties or their own fitness to reach any fixed determination in all
those curious subjects of speculation about which they're commonly employed.
So don't start off sceptical, become sceptical if you encounter problems.
Start off trusting your faculties.
Another issue that I want to bring in here that is obviously related to what we were talking about earlier in terms of the pragmatic justification.
It's commonly called the ethics of belief, and I think Descartes and Hume give a very clear contrast here.
So Descartes, when he starts out, he says, we we should withhold assent to anything that we don't know with total certainty.
So we don't believe things by default. We adopt the sceptical hypothesis until we can actually justify our beliefs.
Hume says, actually, we cannot help believing things.
Belief is typically involuntary if you see a followed by B again and again and you see and you just find yourself expecting a B.
You can't do anything about it and therefore you're not doing anything wrong in believing it.
You couldn't help it. And notice that views on scepticism and ethics belief are likely to be related,
someone who thinks that scepticism can be refuted is quite likely to think that it's a duty on us to refute it.
If on the other hand, you think scepticism can't be refuted, then you're not likely to think that that is a duty.
So we've got a nexus of issues here about scepticism, about justification, about belief,
about the voluntariness or not of believing that are closely tied together.
OK. So. I've suggested that humans response involves rejecting antecedent scepticism.
We shouldn't start out doubting our faculties, we can't do that anyway.
It's not subject to our choice. Instead, what we should do is shift the burden of proof.
We should start off trusting our faculties, trusting our perception, trusting our inductive tendencies.
Until the sceptic gives us a reason for scepticism. So it's not up to us to justify our faculties, it's up to the sceptic,
and the sceptic, of course, could be ourselves thinking through sceptical arguments.
But until we've encountered a reason for distrusting our faculties, we should trust them.
And now you might say, but hang on, hasn't Hume himself given a reason for distrusting induction, didn't he,
in section four of the enquiry spell out powerful arguments suggesting that we cannot justify induction?
We cannot trust our inductive tendencies? Doesn't that give us good reason for scepticism?
And here we come to what is Hume's ultimate answer for which, by the way, you need to look in section 12 of the enquiry,
which I've referred to a number of times, particularly paragraphs 22 and 23, and there what Hume does.
He actually takes the argument that he's put in enquiry section four, and he puts that argument in the mouth of a sceptic.
And then Hume himself appears arguing against the sceptic, and we do get a resolution.
OK, so what is our epistemic situation if humans right? And I've spent some time going through various responses to Hume's argument?
I genuinely believe that there is no successful response to Hume's argument.
OK. That's a reason for focussing on eduction. Here we have a sceptical argument which I happen to believe and many others do too has no answer.
Nobody's managed to give an answer to who.
So ultimately, our situation is we cannot help making inductive inferences, not try yourself, pick up a stone.
Hold it above the ground. Convince yourself that you've got no reason, whatever,
for supposing that just because stones in the past have fallen that this stone is going to fall.
Try to stop yourself believing that when you let go, the stone will fall.
Bet you can't. I can't. OK, so we can't help making inductive inferences, we can't find any epistemological justification for induction.
But also, and this is the important point in relation to the previous slides, we can't see any intrinsic flaw in such inference.
It's not like the sceptic has said I've got good reason for supposing that the future won't resemble the past.
It's just that we've got no reason for supposing that it will. What's the appropriate reaction?
Well, Descartes and the Peroni and sceptic and notice they are on the same side here.
Both Descartes and the extreme sceptic. Their approach to the ethics of belief is, well, if you can't prove it, you shouldn't believe it.
But they can't give us an argument for not believing it.
And if you miss right?
If if it's true, that induction is irresistible, if what I said about dropping the stone is true, even if Descartes, even if the Peroni and sceptic,
even the Peroni and sceptic when he looks at the stone about to be let go of even he can't help believing that the stone will fall.
Then. Going with their principal on the ethics of belief seems a very strange thing to do.
Only and cannot expect that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind.
Or if it had that its influence would be beneficial to society.
On the contrary, he must acknowledge if he will acknowledge anything that all human life must perish.
Were his principles universally and steadily to prevail all discourse,
all action would immediately cease and men remain in a total lethargy till the
necessities of nature unsatisfied put an end to their miserable existence.
If you really go through life not believing that falling off a precipice is dangerous or
that crashing into chariots is dangerous or not believing that that bread will nourish you.
You're going to die.
Can't prove that, but I do believe it, and you probably believe it too, because you irresistibly believe that the future will resemble the past.
If you miss right? OK, so a notice that if if he will acknowledge anything, I think that's quite important here.
If the sceptic just says, I can't tell you anything at all about the future, I know nothing, whatever, OK, you can't give me any advice then, can you?
If you acknowledge nothing, you can't give me advice over what I should do.
And I find my own instincts being to believe that the future will resemble the past.
You, Mr. sceptic, have not given me any reason for doubting that other than the fact that I can't justify it.
So we end up appreciating the whimsical condition of mankind who must act and reason and believe,
though they are not able by their most diligent enquiry to satisfy themselves concerning the
foundation of these operations or to remove the objections which may be raised against them.
It's a whimsical condition because we are left with our inductive tendencies.
We cannot justify them. We can't provide any ultimate reason for expecting that the future will resemble the past.
We can't help doing it and we can't see any reason why we should stop doing it.
So we're in a kind of whimsical condition because we just find ourselves forced by nature to act in a certain way to think in a certain way.
We would love to have some epistemic justification for it.
But sorry, we can't have one. So let's just learn to live with that.
And I've suggested again, that can lead us with a certain Aitarak, a certain tranquillity,
a bit like, you know, when you're rushing, you want to get to a meeting in London, let's say.
And it's a real rush, and you end up at the train station.
And then you discover that all the trains to London have been cancelled. You can't make it to the meeting.
Now, part of you might be a little bit frustrated.
But part of you might feel some relief and you think, oh, no point in struggling about that, I just can't go.
End of story. And maybe the same is true of scepticism.
We struggle to refute it. But then maybe ultimately we find we can't.
Well, let's just live with that. The sceptic has not given us a reason for stopping doing induction,
doing science and all the rest just shown that a certain kind of justification that we would have liked to have had is beyond us.
Thank you.