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Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief


Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief

Hardback by Howson, Colin (, London School of Economics)

Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief

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ISBN:
9780198250371
Publication Date:
2 Nov 2000
Language:
English
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Pages:
272 pages
Format:
Hardback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 24 - 29 May 2024
Hume's Problem: Induction and the Justification of Belief

Description

Colin Howson offers a solution to one of the central, unsolved problems of Western philosophy, the problem of induction. In the mid-eighteenth century David Hume argued that successful prediction tells us nothing about the truth of the predicting theory. No matter how many experimental tests a hypothesis passes, nothing can be legitimately inferred about its truth or probable truth. But physical theory routinely predicts the values of observable magnitudes to many places of decimals and within very small ranges of error. The chance of this sort of predictive success without a true theory seems so remote that the possibility should be dismissed. This suggests that Hume's argument must be wrong; but there is still no consensus on where exactly the flaw in the argument lies. Howson argues that there is no flaw, and examines the implications of this disturbing conclusion for the relation between science and its empirical base.

Contents

Introduction ; 1. Hume's Argument ; 2. Reliabilism ; 3. Realism and the No-Miracles Argument ; 4. Probabilism ; 5. Deductivism ; 6. The Naturalistic Fallacy ; 7. A New Species of Logic ; 8. The Logic of Scientific Discovery ; 9. Chance and Probability ; Finale ; Coda of Miracles ; References ; Index

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