Concept
Problem of induction
Overview
The problem of induction is a philosophical problem that questions the rationality of predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations. These inferences from the observed to the unobserved are known as "inductive inferences". David Hume, who first formulated the problem in 1739, argued that there is no non-circular way to justify inductive inferences, while he acknowledged that everyone does and must make such inferences.
The traditional inductivist view is that all claimed empirical laws, either in everyday life or through the scientific method, can be justified through some form of reasoning. The problem is that many philosophers tried to find such a justification but their proposals were not accepted by others. Identifying the inductivist view as the scientific view, C. D. Broad once said that induction is "the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy". In contrast, Karl Popper's critical rationalism claimed that inductive justifications are never used in science and proposed instead that science is based on the procedure of conjecturing hypotheses, deductively calculating consequences, and then empirically attempting to falsify them.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The logical problem of induction is to show that the proposition “A is always accompanied (or followed) by B” can be rendered probable by knowledge of instances in which this happens, provided the instances are suitably chosen or very numerous. Far the best examination of induction is contained in Mr. J. M. Keynes’s _Treatise on Probability_. There is a valuable doctor’s thesis by the late Jean Nicod, _Le Problème…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
States what Problem of induction is; the author is tied to Problem of induction in the knowledge graph.
There are nevertheless, in mathematics, some examples of so-called Induction, in which the conclusion does bear the appearance of a generalization grounded on some of the particular cases included in it. A mathematician, when he has calculated a sufficient number of the terms of an algebraical or arithmetical series to have ascertained what is called the _law_ of the series, does not hesitate to fill up any number…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Problem of induction is.
It would be easy to prolong these illustrations, were there any need to expatiate on a topic so copiously exemplified in various popular works. From the examples already given, it is seen sufficiently, that the individual facts from which we collect our inductive generalizations are scarcely ever obtained by observation alone. Observation extends only to the sensations by which we recognize objects; but the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Problem of induction is.
Philosophers who discussed Problem of induction
- Nelson Goodman
- David Stove
- Karl Popper
- Sextus Empiricus
- Philodemus
- Leonard Peikoff
- David Hume
- Donald Cary Williams
- Stephen F. Barker
Related ideas
- Foundationalism
- Natural kind
- The Philosophical Quarterly
- Nelson Goodman
- David Stove
- Pyrrhonism
- Al-Ghazali
- Jesuits
- Karl Popper
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Sextus Empiricus
- Metaphysics
- Wesley C. Salmon
- Hypothesis
- A Treatise of Human Nature
- Scientific method
- Infinite regress
- Empirical evidence
- Circular reasoning
- Inference
- William of Ockham
- Willard Van Orman Quine
- Duns Scotus
- Occam's razor
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.