Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction 2006
- 1 An absent family of ideas
- 2 Duality
- 3 Opinion
- 4 Evidence
- 5 Signs
- 6 The first calculations
- 7 The Roannez circle (1654)
- 8 The great decision (1658?)
- 9 The art of thinking (1662)
- 10 Probability and the law (1665)
- 11 Expectation (1657)
- 12 Political arithmetic (1662)
- 13 Annuities (1671)
- 14 Equipossibility (1678)
- 15 Inductive logic
- 16 The art of conjecturing (1692[?] published 1713)
- 17 The first limit theorem
- 18 Design
- 19 Induction (1737)
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction 2006
- 1 An absent family of ideas
- 2 Duality
- 3 Opinion
- 4 Evidence
- 5 Signs
- 6 The first calculations
- 7 The Roannez circle (1654)
- 8 The great decision (1658?)
- 9 The art of thinking (1662)
- 10 Probability and the law (1665)
- 11 Expectation (1657)
- 12 Political arithmetic (1662)
- 13 Annuities (1671)
- 14 Equipossibility (1678)
- 15 Inductive logic
- 16 The art of conjecturing (1692[?] published 1713)
- 17 The first limit theorem
- 18 Design
- 19 Induction (1737)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The sceptical problem about the future, often called the problem of induction, was first published in 1739, in David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. It doubts that any known facts about past objects or events give any reason for beliefs about future objects or events. A similar problem arises also for inference about unremembered past events, and unobserved present ones, but I shall adopt Hume's own format. Will this bread nourish me? Hume argues that no collection of past observations on alimentation give any reason at all for thinking that the next piece of bread will also prove nourishing. Our expectations are formed by custom and habit, but lack justification.
Closely related is the sceptical problem about generalizations. Can any number of observed instances, short of a complete survey, ever make it reasonable to believe a generalization? The work of Hume has itself lent some credence to the view that particular predictions must be based on sound generalizations. Many philosophers think this problem equivalent to the problem about the future. Whether or not we agree with this supposedly Humeian doctrine, when it is not necessary to distinguish the two problems, we may speak simply of the sceptical problem about induction.
The sceptical problem is not to be confused with what may be called the analytic problem. Clearly people do distinguish good inductive reasons from bad ones, so we may begin to classify the various degrees of evidential support.
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- Information
- The Emergence of ProbabilityA Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference, pp. 176 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006