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Skill Module on Induction: a Discussion of Hume and Russell's Skill Module On Induction: A Discussion of Hume and Russell’s View on Empiricism Introductory Note: This inquiry will only be entertaining if the discussion includes students who are on both sides of the fence on this issue. As this will be labeled under humanities, I would like to encourage science majors to make this one of their skill modules. The purpose of this skill module is many: to become acquainted with philosophical jargon, to be introduced to two prolific philosophers, to practice thinking abstractly, arguing, and criticizing abstract ideas. In this Skill module, portions of the enlightened David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and arguably the most influential 20th century philosopher’s (no, influential and philosopher do not form an oxymoron) – Bertrand Russell – The Problems of Philosophy will be discussed. Specifically, how reasonable using induction as a solid form of finding truth is looked at. Questioning empiricism and at least being aware of its flaws (or perhaps what you believe are perceived flaws) can be quite insightful, especially to scientists - who use empiricism every time they use the scientific method. Task 1: Read both excerpts from David Hume and Bertrand Russell (found in that order below). If you don’t know a word, look it up. In order to competently complete Task 2, knowing all of the jargon in both articles will be necessary. Ignore Russell’s talk about sense-data at the very beginning – unless you want to read the first chapter of his book. Task 2: A date will be set to discuss/argue what was read for 1-2 hours, at an interesting location. This will give you an idea of what it is like to be a graduate student of philosophy at a bar. The group will be no larger than 6 people, including an UGTA moderator. Each student will contribute significantly to the discussion/debate. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding1 By David Hume Section 4: Sceptical doubts about the operations of the understanding Part 1 All the objects of human reason or enquiry fall naturally into two kinds, namely relatio ns of ideas and matters of fact. The first kind include geome‐try, algebra, and arithmeti c, and indeed every statement that is either intui‐tively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides expresses a re lation between those figures. That three times five equals half of thirty expresses a relati on between those numbers. Propositions of this kind can be discovered purely by thinki ng, with no need to attend to anything that actually exists anywhere in the uni‐verse. Th e truths that Euclid demonstrated would still be certain and self‐ evident even if there n ever were a circle or triangle in nature. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not estab‐lished in th e same way; and we cannot have such strong grounds for think‐ing them true. The cont rary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it doesn’t imply a contradiction and is conceived by the mind as easily and clearly as if it conformed perfectly to relity. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is just as intelligible as ‐ and no more contradictory than ‐ the proposition that the sun will rise tomorrow. It would therefore be a waste of time t o try to demonstrate [= ‘prove absolutely rigorously’] its falsehood. If it were demon‐str atively false, it would imply a contradiction and so could never be clearly conceived by the mind. 1 This document has been excerpted by Kevan Edwards, with permission, from a manuscript tra nslated and edited by Jonathan Bennett. Bennett’s translations of this and other early modern te xts can be found online at: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com. Bennett uses square [brackets] to enclose edito‐rial explanations and small ∙dots∙ to indicate material that has been added to the o riginal text, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. The present editor has als o used square brackets to indicate omissions of material from Bennett’s text ([...]). Bennett inden ts some passages that are not quotations in order to facili‐tate comprehension of the text. The pr esent editor has added a paragraph break and has put several important terms and passages in bold font. 1 So it may be worth our time and trouble to try to answer this: What sorts of grounds do we have for being sure of matters of fact ‐ propositions about what exists and what is th e case ‐ that are not attested by our present senses or the records of our memory? [...] All reasonings about matters of fact seem to be based on the relation of cause and effect, which is the only relation that can take us beyond the evidence of our memory and sen ses. If you ask someone why he believes some matter of fact which is not now present to him ‐ for instance that his friend is now in France ‐ he will give you a reason; and this r eason will be some other fact, such as that he has received a letter from his friend or that his friend had planned to go to France. Someone who finds a watch or other machine o n a desert island will conclude that there have been men on that island. All our reasonin gs concerning fact are like this. When we reason in this way, we suppose that the presen t fact is connected with the one that we infer from it. If there were nothing to bind the t wo facts together, the inference of one from the other would be utterly shaky. [...] So if we want to understand the basis of our confidence about matters of fact, we must f ind out how we come to know about cause and effect. I venture to assert, as true without exception, that knowledge about causes is never acq uired through a priori reasoning, and always comes from our ex‐perience of finding tha t particular objects are constantly associated with one other. [When Hume is discussing cause and effect, his word ‘object’ often covers events as well as things.] Present an obje ct to a man whose skill and intelligence are as great as you like; if the object is of a kind t hat is entirely new to him, no amount of studying of its perceptible qualities will enable him to discover any of its causes or effects. Adam, even if his reasoning abili‐ties were p erfect from the start, could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of wate r that it could drown him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it could burn him. T he qualities of an object that appear to the senses never reveal the causes that produced the object or the effects that it wll have; nor can our reason, unaided by experience, ever draw any conclu‐sion about real existence and matters of fact. The proposition that causes and effects are discoverable not by reason but by ex‐perienc e will be freely granted (1) with regard to objects that we remember having once been al together unknown to us; for in those cases we remember the time when we were quite u nable to tell what would arise from those ob‐jects. Present two smooth pieces of marble to a man who has no knowledge 2 of physics ‐ he will not be able to work out that they will stick together in such a way th at it takes great force to separate them by pullng them directly away from one another, while it will be easy to slide them apart. (2) Events that are not much like the common c ourse of nature are also readily agreed to be known only by experience; and nobody thi nks that the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a magnet, could ever be discov ered by ar‐guments a priori ‐ ∙that is, by simply thinking about the matter, without brin ging in anything known from experience∙. (3) Similarly, when an effect is thought to de pend on an intricate machinery or secret structure of parts we don’t hesitate to attribute all ur knowledge of it to experience. No‐one would assert that he can give the ultimate r eason why milk or bread is nour‐ishing for a man but not for a lion or a tiger. [...] If you are not yet convinced that absolutely all the laws of nature and opera‐tions of bod ies can be known only by experience, consider the following. If we are asked to say wha t the effects will be of some object, without consult‐ing past experience of it, how can th e mind go about doing this? It must in‐vent or imagine some event as being the object’s effect; and clearly this in‐vention must be entirely arbitrary. The mind can’t possibly fin d the effect in the supposed cause, however carefully we examine it, for the effect is tota lly different from the cause and therefore can never be discovered in it. Motion in the se cond billiard ball is a distinct event from motion in the first, and nothing in the first ball’ s motion even hints at motion in the second. A stone raised into the air and left without any support immediately falls; but if we consider this situation a priori we shall find not hing that generates the idea of a downward rather than an upward o some other motion in the stone.
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